Location: Fall Creek – Florida Road Park to S.R. 238 (& back)
Distance: +/-2.1
Date: 11/12/07
Gauge: 1.9 (Fortville)
Paddle Time: 2 hours
Paddlers: James Nichols (Necky Looksha IV), Doug Mark (Current Designs Breeze)
Weather: Variable - see below
Our November trip, one more monthly trip to go to close out the year. This was rescheduled from a planned trip to Westwood Park in New Castle to bike and paddle. We had a lot of rain the day before so the trails were closed. On the drive across the causeway at Geist Reservoir we weren’t sure if there would even be enough water to do much on the reservoir…a large area of the bottom was exposed.
Arriving at the park we checked out the creek and decided that since the water level seemed to be pretty decent (in spite of being probably a couple of feet below normal) we would
head upstream and see if we could get past the tree that had blocked our way the last time we were in the area. While carrying over the small dam just upstream we discussed the possibility of running it on the way back. It looked like it might be possible, but that would depend on whether the current pushed you into the stump in the middle of the “spillway”.
After struggling through several spots where low water levels made the current pretty swift and paddling difficult we were able to go about two miles upstream. With the lower water level we were able to paddle under the tree that blocked our way before, and only had a short carry over another tree just after that. Just after passing under S.R. 238 we were stopped by a sycamore tree down in the water. We probably could have made it through coming downstream, but it was starting to get dark and we didn’t want to struggle through that only to find another tree in the way around the bend.
Wildlife was fairly numerous; we saw a large red-tailed hawk, deer, evidence of beavers and several types of ducks.
Coming back down we seemed to fly compared to the fight to get upstream. We stopped on a small island so I could call home since it was getting dark, and when we were pushing off I thought I saw a flash of lightning. The thunder that followed was several seconds later and sounded odd, so we weren’t sure it had been lightning. A minute or so later we saw a lighting strike with at least two bolts. I started counting to judge the distance, then neither one of us could remember how to do the math.
That left us multi-tasking in several ways: paddling hard for the dam, trying
to remember how to calculate the distance to the storm, trying to decide if we could run the dam or carry over, and basically wondering if we would be hit by lightning and die. (In case you're wondering I looked it up: count the seconds and divide by 5) Just as the houses near the lake came into view it started to rain pretty hard, but there was no more lightning. We had left our jackets in the truck due to the warm temperature so we were soaked pretty quickly. We decided to carry the boats over the dam since it was getting pretty dark.
Once we got back in the boats we paddled hard again for the takeout, which is only a couple of hundred yards away, and made it safely to the truck.
Distance: +/-2.1
Date: 11/12/07
Gauge: 1.9 (Fortville)
Paddle Time: 2 hours
Paddlers: James Nichols (Necky Looksha IV), Doug Mark (Current Designs Breeze)
Weather: Variable - see below
Our November trip, one more monthly trip to go to close out the year. This was rescheduled from a planned trip to Westwood Park in New Castle to bike and paddle. We had a lot of rain the day before so the trails were closed. On the drive across the causeway at Geist Reservoir we weren’t sure if there would even be enough water to do much on the reservoir…a large area of the bottom was exposed.
Arriving at the park we checked out the creek and decided that since the water level seemed to be pretty decent (in spite of being probably a couple of feet below normal) we would
head upstream and see if we could get past the tree that had blocked our way the last time we were in the area. While carrying over the small dam just upstream we discussed the possibility of running it on the way back. It looked like it might be possible, but that would depend on whether the current pushed you into the stump in the middle of the “spillway”.After struggling through several spots where low water levels made the current pretty swift and paddling difficult we were able to go about two miles upstream. With the lower water level we were able to paddle under the tree that blocked our way before, and only had a short carry over another tree just after that. Just after passing under S.R. 238 we were stopped by a sycamore tree down in the water. We probably could have made it through coming downstream, but it was starting to get dark and we didn’t want to struggle through that only to find another tree in the way around the bend.
Wildlife was fairly numerous; we saw a large red-tailed hawk, deer, evidence of beavers and several types of ducks.
Coming back down we seemed to fly compared to the fight to get upstream. We stopped on a small island so I could call home since it was getting dark, and when we were pushing off I thought I saw a flash of lightning. The thunder that followed was several seconds later and sounded odd, so we weren’t sure it had been lightning. A minute or so later we saw a lighting strike with at least two bolts. I started counting to judge the distance, then neither one of us could remember how to do the math.
That left us multi-tasking in several ways: paddling hard for the dam, trying
to remember how to calculate the distance to the storm, trying to decide if we could run the dam or carry over, and basically wondering if we would be hit by lightning and die. (In case you're wondering I looked it up: count the seconds and divide by 5) Just as the houses near the lake came into view it started to rain pretty hard, but there was no more lightning. We had left our jackets in the truck due to the warm temperature so we were soaked pretty quickly. We decided to carry the boats over the dam since it was getting pretty dark.Once we got back in the boats we paddled hard again for the takeout, which is only a couple of hundred yards away, and made it safely to the truck.
