Location: Sugar Creek – Crawfordsville to Deer’s Mill Bridge
Distance: +/-15 miles
Date: 5/17/08
Gauge: 2.9
Paddle Time: 5 hours
Paddlers: Church youth group
Weather: 65 & sunny

We had to delay this trip from two weeks previous due to the forecast for rain. Of course it didn’t rain that day, but this day got really gray & chilly right before we put in & sprinkled a little. Fortunately an hour or so into the trip it got sunny and was really nice the rest of the day.

We had six private boaters with kayaks so we dropped off at the put-in and waited while everyone else shuttled. One of our renters drove the truck & trailer to the takeout so we basically did the trip for free.

The put-in is at river left, and I was a little worried about the put-in since there is a good-sized rock just below on the same side of the river that was a bit of an obstacle at this level, but we instructed everyone to paddle upstream, and head toward the eddy just downstream on river left. We ended up with five kayaks and six canoes, and everyone made it into the eddy & stopped, so after the last boat was in we headed downstream as a group, more or less.

I ended up with sweep duty, which didn’t leave much time for playing in the holes we encountered. The water level was perfect for keeping things moving most of the way, and also leaving some holes to play in in the rock gardens here and there.

After a few miles the only boat in sight contained a couple of high school boys who spent more time talking than paddling, so we were pretty far behind the group. They managed to get quite a bit of water into their boat after a rock garden so they pulled over on a sandbar to empty it. Unfortunately they missed the lower area of the bank that I pointed out to them & ended up on a pretty steep section. Being he-man high-schoolers they of course picked up one end of the boat to dump the water out instead of just rolling it. That worked to get most of the water out so they pulled it up on the bank to get the rest out. Of course that meant seal-launching off of a 3’ high bank, so I got out my video camera in order to capture the capsize I was sure was coming up. They didn’t disappoint, as soon as the front of the boat hit the water they started over, and ended up in the water.

Just so we could get going I had them bring the boat down where I was waiting for them and the bank was lower so I could show them how to roll it over to get the water out, then they could get started downstream a little easier. I did tell them thanks for the youtube footage for the earlier spill.

When we caught up to the rest of the group they were on a small sandbar river left. Apparently a couple of boats had capsized in the rock garden there. Tucker had gone out in it a couple of times surfing and evidently the third time was the charm & he went over. He couldn’t quite accomplish a roll so he had to we exit. Fortunately a couple of the other kayakers were able to chase down his paddle and boat. Looks like a paddle leash would be a good idea for a birthday present.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. I thought we were going to have a problem in one fairly narrow and fast section when two boys were headed for a large branch sticking into the water. I told them to watch out for it, and that’s exactly what they did; they watched it while they floated right into it. They managed to tip the boat enough that the gunwale went under a portion of it that was sticking straight down. When they got the boat leveled out they were caught on the branch. I couldn’t get over to them because the current was so fast, but they managed to get it free without capsizing.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, just a few herons and squirrels. There is a lot of nice scenery, especially the waterfall near the Yount’s Mills bridge, but the scenery on the lower section through Turkey Run is definitely nicer. I thought this run was more fun for playing in a small whitewater boat.