Monday, November 2, 2009

August Paddle

Eagle Creek Reservoir

James had acquired a new kevlar canoe that needed to be in the water so we took it out on a really nice August evening. We also got Mark and Paula to come along, and Paula had her first outing in the Looksha.

The Looksha doesn't have the initial stability of the Breeze that she is used to paddling so she was a little uncomfortable for the first bit. The canoe is also pretty narrow, but after getting the feel of it we decided it paddles like a dream. With both of us paddling with kayak paddles we could really make it fly.

There is a size limit for paddling this boat, though, as the back seat is fixed in place due to the way the back of the boat tapers, and it's pretty narrow. But it's really fast, if I hadn't mentioned that.

We just went out and paddled around, but it was a really nice evening just about sunset. Unfortunately the Lafayette Road bridge was still not finished so we had to thread our way around construction debris and a silt boom, but once on the lake it was really nice.

Monday, July 13, 2009

July Paddle Trip and Training

We started this trip from Wabash, Indiana on the Wabash River, intending to paddle to Attica, Indiana. Our plan was to paddle through the night- or as long as we felt like it - as training for the Missouri River 340 coming up the first week of August.

Most of our trips we manage to pick streams that have enough water flowing in them that we can paddle along pretty well. This time we didn't do so well. Not being all that familiar with the Wabash we didn't know how the gauge levels in different areas related to the water being high enough to paddle, so we just loaded up and went. Plus there had been a lot of rain on July 4th, so

Unfortunately the low water level slowed the current to less than 1mph most of the way, so our expected average speed of 5 mph went out the window fairly quickly.

We did see a bald eagle about an hour into the trip, and followed it down the river for a bit, but most of the time we had to paddle steadily to keep moving forward.

Above Logansport we ran aground in the river at one point and decided we might as well stop for a break since we had to get out of the boat anyway. At least the water was fairly warm, so we stood in the river for a few minutes to rest.

After we got underway again we still continued to run over shallow rocky spots and began to worry about the boat. We didn't want to continue to scrape it on the rocks and risk putting a hole in the bottom.

After scraping through a few more shallow areas just before the city, including one that turned us around twice, we reached the public access at the upstream end of downtown. This was not a great place to stop as it was basically a concrete ramp in a neighborhood. I was about done in at this point and pretty much ready to call it quits. We finally decided to paddle on down through town and see if things got any better below the confluence with the Eel River.

But, right after we got back in we found a place where it looked like we could pull out and there might be a place to get a cup of coffee or something. Unfortunately that turned out not to be the case, but at least we now knew what was at the Little Turtle Watershed Park - that information turned out to be handy later.

Since we could hear water on rocks again below the park I scouted if from the bridge nearby and saw that we could make it through if we stayed far to river left. We still scraped a bit, but made it through relatively unscathed.

We had pretty good paddling for a half mile or so after that, and after the confluence the river widened out so it looked pretty good. By this time it was after 2AM, so we were getting a bit tired. Just before the bridge we almost hit a bicycle, it was barely under water. Just after the bridge we hit the last straw...a rock ledge that apparently had no end. As best we could tell the river was 100 yards or so wide, and 3" inches deep. We could see the backs of a lot of fish, mostly carp. What we could not see was where the water got deep again. After sitting in the middle of the river taking it all in for another 15 minutes or so we decided to paddle back upstream to the park and call it quits.

We left the canoe under a bridge and walked a few blocks to the BP...odd that the lady working didn't even give us a second glance when we walked in wearing PFD's and headlights, but by then it was about 3AM - she had probably seen stranger things.

The guy at the attached Arby's told us the dining room was closed, but that the drive-thru was open. When we asked if we could walk through he said no, and asked what we were driving. When we answered "a canoe" he decided he would take our order after all.

After we ate we went back to the park, unloaded the boat and brought it up the stairs to be near all of our gear. We laid stuff out as best we could to dry and laid down; odd that no police stopped by to see what we were doing sleeping in the park. We were going to tell them we weren't camping, just sitting and waiting for a ride.

Around 6 or so James walked back to Arby's to get breakfast...we didn't want to leave all of our gear spread out in the park with no one around. By that time we were starting to get some odd looks from walkers, but the parks people who came through didn't ask any questions. Around 7 we called Julie to ask for a ride home, so she headed out to get us.

Unfortunately we didn't make either our distance or time goals, but we didn't ruin the boat, either.

Below are James' blog posts:

  • Training Paddle

    Posted: 2009-07-05 16:35:24 UTC-04:00

    Well its Sunday around 4:30 and Doug and I are just about ready to put in for a 100 mile training paddle on the Wabash. The trip is dual purpose, we're training for our August adventure in the MR 340 race in Missouri as well as scouting for the Wabash 100 race planned for 2010.

    So far so good!

Its dark...

Posted: 2009-07-05 22:28:33 UTC-04:00
And the bugs are crazy! There are millions on them everywhere. Good thing the moon is nice and bright, we don't have to use headlamps to attract even more....

25 miles down

Standing in the river....

Posted: 2009-07-05 23:20:44 UTC-04:00
Since there's no water, we're standing in about 8 inches of water, trying to decide where to drag the boat. We're taking a few minutes as a break in the meantime....
  • Good night moon!

    Posted: 2009-07-05 23:49:37 UTC-04:00


Thursday, July 9, 2009

June Trip

White River - Indianapolis Art Center to Rocky Ripple

We paddled as part of the River School that Friends of White River puts on to teach people about water quality and other characteristics of the river. James was the skipper of one of the rafts that the kids were in, and I was one of the safety boaters. Here is an article that was in the Star afterward:

White River group gains friends by leading float trips

Most of the two dozen Arlington Community High School students had never been in a boat before, and some were nervous. "I heard boats are tippy," said senior Montice Smith, 18.
Canoes are, but inflatable rafts aren't, and the students' trip Friday down the White River from Broad Ripple to Rocky Ripple proceeded with nerves that soon gave way to the sights along the waterway.

Their guide, Kevin Hardie, executive director of Friends of the White River, has taken newbies down the White for two decades but has stepped up his efforts as part of the group's attempts to build alliances by exposing people to the river.

"The river sells itself," Hardie says, "and positive uses drive out negative uses. People who see the river up close tend to advocate for it." Winning over high school students is a long-term play,
but some of Hardie's recent trekkers already are in leadership positions. Last weekend, they included Max Anderson, the Indianapolis Museum of Art's CEO; Bob Whitt, White River State Park's executive director; Indianapolis Downtown Inc.'s Tamara Zahn; and Frank Basile, the retired real estate executive and philanthropist.

Basile has lived in Indianapolis since the 1970s but had been on the river just once, briefly. Last Saturday he and the others floated from Broad Ripple to the art museum. "It looked like a wild oasis in the middle of the city," he enthused. "We recently went down the Zambesi River
(in central Africa), and except for the fact there were no hippopotamuses in the White, it reminded me of it. It was exhilarating."

The White, long abused, is cleaner than it has been in 100 years, say experts. But its future is uncertain, with much of the undeveloped banks north of Indianapolis overflowing with commercial potential. Basile said that because of his river trip, not only is he thinking of buying a
kayak, he'd be more likely to oppose development along the river. "It's a remarkable body of water going through our city," Basile said, "and we need to protect it."

The Arlington students paddled down the river wide-eyed. An enormous, gawky blue heron swooped low over the water about 30 yards from Steven Kaba's raft. Kaba had never seen a blue heron before. "That's one crazy-looking bird," he said.

At one point Kaba, 17, paddled past a combined sewer overflow, a pipe that, with Indianapolis' antiquated sewer system, delivers raw sewage directly into the river following a rain. This surprised him. "People dumping stuff right into the water? How could that be?" he said.
"That's a real legitimate response," said Hardie. The city is in the early stages of a $3.5 billion plan that, in 20 years, will remedy the situation.

The trip ended happily for Kaba. He saw a great horned owl. He learned how to steer the boat, sitting in the back, or stern, and using his paddle like a rudder. "The whole trip was cool," he said. "I'd do it again."

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

May Paddle Trip

Location: Eagle Creek - Lions Park to 96th Street

This is monthly trip #33 in a row, and it was a lot of fun. We got a good group of people together to paddle one of our favorite stretches of water. We all had things to do later in the day so we met at 7:00, it was worth it as you can see in this photo.


It was a day for a couple of new people to join us (welcome to Michael and Cristal), and it was also Paula's birthday.


The creek was at a really nice level, with only one spot we really had to squeeze through at the old railroad bridge. This has been getting tighter all the time with trees stacked up against the piers, one of these days it may close off completely, or we may have to do some chainsaw work.

Cristal managed to turn over her boat, but was the only swimmer of the day.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

April Trip

Eagle Creek - Holiday Road bridge to Lions Park

This was not our original destination but it turned out to be a really nice trip. We originally planned to do our usual short-duration run from Turkeyfoot Park to Lions Park, but when we pulled in to unload the boats there were about 10 no parking signs along the road. Apparently now that it is a real park the people who live around it don't want it to be used by anyone who has to drive to it so the Town has obliged them by making it impossible to park there.

Fortunately the Holiday Road bridge has been restored with a new deck and paint (an orange that will really get it noticed) and there is space alongside the road to park. There are no trespassing signs on the property adjacent to the road, so hopefully that won't be a problem in the future, but we were at least able to get on the water there.

We didn't have any obstacles on the trip, it was just a nice paddle down to Lion's Park. The water level was really nice and kept us floating through the places we sometimes have to walk at low levels.

This makes 32 months in a row...we're sneaking up on three years of monthly paddle trips.

Monday, April 13, 2009

March Trip

The location of this trip is top secret due to its designation as the site as part of the next Planet Adventure Sprint Adventure Race on April 18.

So I'll just say we drove a while, paddled a shorter while, hiked a little for an outstanding view, paddled some more and drove home.

After the race I can add a few details and a photo from trip #31.

July 8...almost forgot to update this. I don't have any more photos but I can now say that we were at Starve Hollow State Recreation Area near Brownstown. It looks like a pretty small property overall, but the lake was nice to paddle around, and the campground appeared to be really nice.

We have now paddled 31 months in a row, hopefully we can keep this up.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

January Trip
We didn't want to break our streak of monthly trips, and there was no water that wasn't frozen so we decided to paddle downhill on the frozen stuff. This makes 29 consecutive months of paddling.



Austin


James



Doug


Natalie

Austin


Tucker

December Trip

Eagle Creek Reservior

We wanted to start paddling a canoe together since we're planning & training for the MR340 in August, so we went to the reservoir. The temperature was in the low 20's but we still had a group of five people in four boats.

We paddled from the upper end down to the north end of the rowing course & back. There were a lot of geese and ducks flying around due to most of the other waterways around the city being frozen.

November Trip

White River
River Road Park to Hazel Landing Park

We made a short trip with the kids to get them out. The temperature was in the 40's but we found some ice in some backwater areas and had fun playing icebreaker.