Monday, September 15, 2008

September Paddle & Friends of White River Cleanup



We helped out with the Friends of the White River cleanup on Saturday 9/13. We weren't sure exactly what we were supposed to do, but Kevin Hardie - guy in charge - said we were the safety boaters. Since we brought kayaks that seemed as good as anything...not a lot of carrying capacity.

Due to an iffy weather forecast several people decided not to go at the last minute, but we had six canoes, two kayaks and two jet-drive boats on the section from Hazel Landing to Sandy Point south of 82nd Street.

The level of paddling experience among those in the canoes varied from zero to veteran so we really didn't worry about people tipping over too much unless they reached too far out to pick something up, but the "yellow bananas" from Adventure Works Events that they were paddling have proven not to be the most stable of boats - at least when loaded with three people during an adventure race - so we kept a pretty good eye on people for the first 15 minutes or so to see how they were doing, but they were fine. Must be something about adventure racers and being in a hurry that doesn't go well with those boats.

Everyone did a really thorough job in the first third of the segment, unfortunately that took about two-thirds of the time we had allowed for the cleanup.

Interesting items we found were about one-third of a canoe, a steering wheel, a construction cone and a conveyor-belt screen. We also saw what looked like a couple of appliances but they looked like it would take an excavator to get them out so we didn't bother with them.

Further down, just below 96th Street we found a huge mess of beer cans and bottles, broken plastic chairs, coolers and milk crates. James and I used straps to fasten a couple of milk crates to our boats and make it a little easier to carry trash.

One of the guys in a jet boat also hauled a grill and a small table from the sandbar behind BGI...someone is going to be really disappointed when they show up for their next sandbar party. I saw a few tires and other junk in the jet boats too, but didn't have any part of picking them up. We headed back up to he put-in fairly soon after we got back so we didn't see everything that was picked up.

An article in Sunday's paper said they had not yet totaled the amount of trash picked up, but overall there were several counties involved and I think 1000 volunteers showed up. They were expecting around 2000 but the weather kept a lot away.

In the end it was a nice paddle. The weather at the beginning was a little gray, but it turned out really nice for the day. We got to meet and paddle with some new people that we'll hopefully see on the river again, and we made a bit of a positive difference for a resource we use fairly often and hopefully don't take for granted.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

August Trip - 23 Consecutive Monthly Trips - One to Go

Location: Fall Creek – S.R. 13 to Florida Road Park
Distance: +/-4 miles
Date: 8-27-08
Gauge: 1.6 @ Fortville
Paddle Time: 1.5 hr
Paddlers: Doug (Pelican Break), James (Necky Looksha), Mark (Breeze)
Weather: 82 & partly cloudy

I'm just now posting this because it was part of the Indianapolis Sprint ADventure Race on September 6 & I didn't want to put it up on the off chance that someone might see it.

James told us ahead of time there would be three or four portages, so I brought our smallest boat in case we ended up shoving them through trees or something. Having a total brain fade James removed his Dagger RPM (10’) from his trailer in order to bring his Necky…an 18’ boat. Just looking to add to the level of difficulty, I guess.

In spite of a lack of rain for the last couple of weeks the water level wasn’t bad. There was one gravel bar with only about 3” of water that we had to walk over for 50’ or so, but it was a nice day to do that.

The first place we had to cross a log we decided we didn’t really want to chance running into nettles by carrying around so we pushed them through, not too difficult. There were a few other places we had to slide over logs, but no major obstacles until just past S.R. 238. We had encountered this on our way upstream on a previous paddle, and James had crossed it a couple of weeks before, but the water was a little higher then. Keeping to the no-nettles policy we decided we could walk between the logs to get to the second one. I stayed to the right where the water was only a couple of feet deep, but the bank was steep. James decided to try the middle where it was a little deeper, but the bottom was level. Mark positioned himself behind us where he could watch us both fall in.

I had just crossed the first log & was getting my footing on the far side when James took one more step and instantly went from thigh-deep to more than waist deep. I decided if it was that deep I would just sit on the rear deck of my boat and float over. James backed out of the deep spot and managed to get himself on the rear deck of his boat, but was a bit off-center and almost went over. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off the boat, and I was really wishing I had my video camera. He got the bow up on the log & was making pretty good progress over it when he decided it was better to stand on the log. He did make it off of the boat and onto the log without falling in. I was able to slide over with a little push from him, but Mark ended up getting out as well to get the Breeze over. After that he got the chance to practice his newly-acquired boat entry skills while balanced on a log in about 5’ of water and came through with flying colors.

We expected another log carryover just around the bend, but a portion of it had evidently broken off in the interim because the way was clear. The rest of the way down to the park was also clear and just a matter of paddling through the slower water at the head of the lake.

I think this could be a real challenge if the water was a couple of feet higher. You could probably still carry boats over the logs closer to the bank or up higher in the nettles, but if it was moving very fast there would be the possibility of getting swept into one of these obstacles before you were able to stop & prepare for it. Not a good thing. The adventure racers will mostly be doing it in the dark in September, so if it doesn’t rain in the next couple of weeks, or if it rains a lot between now and then they will have a really challenging paddle section.
We have talked about paddling down from Pendleton, but that could be a long trip if there are as many trees down upstream as there are in this section...something like our trip last December on the upper part of Eagle Creek.

So, one more trip in September and we will have done 24 monthly trips, with a few others thrown in for variety. We plan to work on 25-36 with an overnight trip on the Vermillion River from Danville, IL to near Cayuga, IN. Stay tuned.

Races for the To-Do List

So James made it through the MR340 this summer (340 miles on the Missouri River) and we are planning to do it next summer.

We would also like to do this race in the Adirondacks , and this race around Manhattan in the future.

But this one...we think we can live without. Kudos to those who can make it through something like that.