Location: Eagle Creek – Turkey Foot Park to Lions Park
Distance: +/-2 miles
Date: 4/30/08
Gauge: 1.9
Paddle Time: 1 hour
Paddlers: James, Doug
Weather: 65 & sunny
Big Fun in Small Boats
We decided to "borrow" our kids' whitewater boats for this trip on Eagle Creek since the water was pretty low. Really too low, but we didn't have a lot of options or time to find someplace else since it was the last day of the month.
The first thing we noticed is that they are finally working on Turkey Foot Park. A footbridge is partially installed across the creek from the end of the road north. Apparently there will be a trail in the future, too. It will be interesting to see how that affects our ability to park near there and put the boats in. Hopefully if nothing else there will at least be a parking area at the bridge.
After launching we headed downstream threading our way through the low spots. Some areas looked a lot different than usual with minimal water flowing. A couple of spots that are usually pretty fun in our big boats and would have been a lot more fun in the small boats.
Unfortunately we had to live with the low water and get in a short fun paddle. That will be a good excuse to do it again when it's warmer and there is more water. We did see a couple of deer and some good-sized fish near the golf course.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
March Trip on Fall Creek
Location: Fall Creek 79th to Shadeland Ave./Fall Creek Park
Distance: +/-5.75 miles
Date: 3/27/08
Gauge: 5.3 (Millersville)
Paddle Time: 2 hours
Paddlers: James (Looksha), Doug (Breeze)
Weather: 45 & sunny
This was a really nice early spring paddle. When we put in at 79th Street the water was up a couple of feet from the last time we did this run so it was really easy to slide right in. We had been a little concerned about trees being down because the water had been pretty high earlier in the week but there was only one tree we had to drag around. We made a short side trip up Indian Creek but stopped about a quarter mile up because of a tree across the creek.
At one time we had eight herons in the air ahead of us because we kept pushing pairs of them downstream. That was really a sight.
The small drop at the Shadeland and 465 bridges was a lot of fun. The water was high enough to cover all the rocks, and there was a small standing wave at one point. We both got quite a bit of water in our boats but it didn’t matter much since we were at the end. There is a really nice takeout opportunity at the park just downstream; the accessible ramp makes a really nice ramp to get a boat out. We definitely want to do this again at the same water level with the smaller boats in warm weather. It would be fun to go up & play in the “waves”.
Location: Fall Creek 79th to Shadeland Ave./Fall Creek Park
Distance: +/-5.75 miles
Date: 3/27/08
Gauge: 5.3 (Millersville)
Paddle Time: 2 hours
Paddlers: James (Looksha), Doug (Breeze)
Weather: 45 & sunny
This was a really nice early spring paddle. When we put in at 79th Street the water was up a couple of feet from the last time we did this run so it was really easy to slide right in. We had been a little concerned about trees being down because the water had been pretty high earlier in the week but there was only one tree we had to drag around. We made a short side trip up Indian Creek but stopped about a quarter mile up because of a tree across the creek.
At one time we had eight herons in the air ahead of us because we kept pushing pairs of them downstream. That was really a sight.
The small drop at the Shadeland and 465 bridges was a lot of fun. The water was high enough to cover all the rocks, and there was a small standing wave at one point. We both got quite a bit of water in our boats but it didn’t matter much since we were at the end. There is a really nice takeout opportunity at the park just downstream; the accessible ramp makes a really nice ramp to get a boat out. We definitely want to do this again at the same water level with the smaller boats in warm weather. It would be fun to go up & play in the “waves”.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
February Paddle on Eagle Creek
Location: Eagle Creek - Ford Road to Lafayette Road
Distance: +/-3
Date: 2-25-08
Gauge: 2.2
Paddle Time: 1 hour
Paddlers: James Nichols (Breeze), Doug Mark (Zirconia)
Weather: 36 degrees, cloudy, calm
Another really nice winter paddle. It was really cloudy and gray, but the temperature was around 35 so it wasn't too cold. We hit the water about 5:00 at the Ford Road bridge. The weather was supposed to get nasty on Tuesday so we needed to get this month's trip in before that or the end of the month.
The water was amazingly clear. We could see the bottom unless the water got over about four feet deep. That was surprising since it never seems to be that clear in the summer.
The last time we did this section most of it was in the dark so it was nice to see what we had missed. One spot where we had to carry around a tree last time was different; the giant tree that had been blocking the creek was gone.
There were some really cool ice formations on tree branches that had been in the water, but the water had gone down & left ice between the small tips of the branches. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us so we weren't able to get pictures.
We took out just before the reservior. Parking is easy on Lafayette Road and it saves a long flat water paddle to the marina in the park.
Distance: +/-3
Date: 2-25-08
Gauge: 2.2
Paddle Time: 1 hour
Paddlers: James Nichols (Breeze), Doug Mark (Zirconia)
Weather: 36 degrees, cloudy, calm
Another really nice winter paddle. It was really cloudy and gray, but the temperature was around 35 so it wasn't too cold. We hit the water about 5:00 at the Ford Road bridge. The weather was supposed to get nasty on Tuesday so we needed to get this month's trip in before that or the end of the month.
The water was amazingly clear. We could see the bottom unless the water got over about four feet deep. That was surprising since it never seems to be that clear in the summer.
The last time we did this section most of it was in the dark so it was nice to see what we had missed. One spot where we had to carry around a tree last time was different; the giant tree that had been blocking the creek was gone.
There were some really cool ice formations on tree branches that had been in the water, but the water had gone down & left ice between the small tips of the branches. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us so we weren't able to get pictures.
We took out just before the reservior. Parking is easy on Lafayette Road and it saves a long flat water paddle to the marina in the park.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Ice Cubes
Location: White River – 116th Street to 82nd Street
Distance +/-X
Date: 1/30/08
Gauge: 3.1 (Nora)
Paddle Time: 1.5 hours
Paddlers: James Nichols (Current Designs Breeze), Doug Mark (Liquidlogic Zirconia)
Weather: 20 degrees & calm
In spite of the low temperature this was one of the nicest trips we have done. The day before it had been cloudy, rainy and the wind was 60+ MPH. Fortunately for us it was clear and calm and the river was at a nice level.
Unfortunately we didn't get on the water until close to 6PM, so the sun was already starting down. We knew we would be finishing in the dark, but figured there would be enough ambient light from being in the city that we would be able to see fairly well.
As we started out from the 116th Street boat ramp we were running through a lot of small floating ice chunks. Most of them were not very big but every once in a while one of us would hit one that would deflect our boat a little.
Overall this trip was pretty uneventful. We saw a really nice sunset, and there was enough light for most of the trip we didn't have to worry about hitting anything. There were a few low-hanging branches that we had to dodge. I hit a rock ust past the 96th Street bridge, but fortunately it was fairly small. Due to the temperature we were b
eing very careful not to go in the water...that would have been bad.
Just before the takeout was really dark and we were paddling along talking when a group of geese took off from the water very near us. They were really loud and really startled us; we started talking about how it would be pretty bad to make it down the river and then tip over from being scared by geese.
Distance +/-X
Date: 1/30/08
Gauge: 3.1 (Nora)
Paddle Time: 1.5 hours
Paddlers: James Nichols (Current Designs Breeze), Doug Mark (Liquidlogic Zirconia)
Weather: 20 degrees & calm
In spite of the low temperature this was one of the nicest trips we have done. The day before it had been cloudy, rainy and the wind was 60+ MPH. Fortunately for us it was clear and calm and the river was at a nice level.
Unfortunately we didn't get on the water until close to 6PM, so the sun was already starting down. We knew we would be finishing in the dark, but figured there would be enough ambient light from being in the city that we would be able to see fairly well.
As we started out from the 116th Street boat ramp we were running through a lot of small floating ice chunks. Most of them were not very big but every once in a while one of us would hit one that would deflect our boat a little.
Overall this trip was pretty uneventful. We saw a really nice sunset, and there was enough light for most of the trip we didn't have to worry about hitting anything. There were a few low-hanging branches that we had to dodge. I hit a rock ust past the 96th Street bridge, but fortunately it was fairly small. Due to the temperature we were b
eing very careful not to go in the water...that would have been bad.Just before the takeout was really dark and we were paddling along talking when a group of geese took off from the water very near us. They were really loud and really startled us; we started talking about how it would be pretty bad to make it down the river and then tip over from being scared by geese.
I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but there is a whole lot of ice around the drip ring on my paddle in the last photo. They don't work so great when they have 1/4" or so of ice covering them.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Location: Eagle Creek – SR 32 (U.S. 421 & S.R. 32) to Turkeyfoot Park
Date: 12-30-07
Gauge: 3.1
Paddle Time: 4 hours
Paddlers: Doug Mark (Current Designs Breeze), James Nichols (Necky Looksha) , Tucker Mark (Perception Dancer)
Weather: Cloudy & 31 degrees
Our December trip, that makes a trip at least once a month in ’07. This was a new stretch of Eagle Creek for us. The put-in is very easy, we went in on the east side of the bridg. You could enter either upstream or downstream of the bridge, with an easy walk down to the water. One thing about parking; we had planned to park in the large gravel lot on the NW side of the intersection, but there were some fairly new "No Parking - You Will Be Towed" signs around so we ended up on the county road to the east. It's about a 1/4 mile walk, but better than being towed.
After about a quarter mile the creek runs through Wolf Run Golf Club. Since this is a very exclusive club I’m sure we would not be welcome during warmer weather. Fortunately no one was out golfing or working. Since it was Tucker’s first outing in his new boat I told him to stay ahead of or near us so we could keep an eye on him. The first mile or so went fine, we went through several small rapids with no trouble. Tucker was about 75 feet behind James and me when I heard a splash & turned around to see that he had tipped over. He says he doesn’t know why, we were in flat water, but over he went. He almost made it back up, which I thought was pretty good since he doesn’t know how to roll yet, but he didn’t quite make it so he popped the skirt & got out. The good new is he can wet exit OK, the bad news is he found out when the air temperature was 31 and the water was really cold.
I had brought extra clothes so he got changed & back in the boat. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get all the water out so he was still pretty cold. We stopped at County Road 100 South and waited at the bridge so Julie could come & pick him up, he was just too cold & wet to go on.
Between there and CR 200 S we must have had to carry over or around logs a half a dozen times…it was getting annoying. At one point James got out on the bank where it looked soft, but not excessively so…looks can be deceiving. He sunk in up to his knees, it was really boggy there. We finally got past all that I had a nice run down to the park. Even with the water at 3 we still had several low spots, but overall this was a nice mix of flat water & riffles to make things interesting.
We did see a hawk, a deer and a couple of herons as well. This run didn’t have as many houses along it as the other parts of the creek do, probably to starting in a more rural area and the fact that the creek bottom is fairly wide and flat in most places. In warmer weather we would probably start from CR 100 S to avoid the golf course. Access to the creek is easy there and you can walk down right next to the bridge.
Date: 12-30-07
Gauge: 3.1
Paddle Time: 4 hours
Paddlers: Doug Mark (Current Designs Breeze), James Nichols (Necky Looksha) , Tucker Mark (Perception Dancer)
Weather: Cloudy & 31 degrees
Our December trip, that makes a trip at least once a month in ’07. This was a new stretch of Eagle Creek for us. The put-in is very easy, we went in on the east side of the bridg. You could enter either upstream or downstream of the bridge, with an easy walk down to the water. One thing about parking; we had planned to park in the large gravel lot on the NW side of the intersection, but there were some fairly new "No Parking - You Will Be Towed" signs around so we ended up on the county road to the east. It's about a 1/4 mile walk, but better than being towed.
After about a quarter mile the creek runs through Wolf Run Golf Club. Since this is a very exclusive club I’m sure we would not be welcome during warmer weather. Fortunately no one was out golfing or working. Since it was Tucker’s first outing in his new boat I told him to stay ahead of or near us so we could keep an eye on him. The first mile or so went fine, we went through several small rapids with no trouble. Tucker was about 75 feet behind James and me when I heard a splash & turned around to see that he had tipped over. He says he doesn’t know why, we were in flat water, but over he went. He almost made it back up, which I thought was pretty good since he doesn’t know how to roll yet, but he didn’t quite make it so he popped the skirt & got out. The good new is he can wet exit OK, the bad news is he found out when the air temperature was 31 and the water was really cold.
I had brought extra clothes so he got changed & back in the boat. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get all the water out so he was still pretty cold. We stopped at County Road 100 South and waited at the bridge so Julie could come & pick him up, he was just too cold & wet to go on.
Between there and CR 200 S we must have had to carry over or around logs a half a dozen times…it was getting annoying. At one point James got out on the bank where it looked soft, but not excessively so…looks can be deceiving. He sunk in up to his knees, it was really boggy there. We finally got past all that I had a nice run down to the park. Even with the water at 3 we still had several low spots, but overall this was a nice mix of flat water & riffles to make things interesting.
We did see a hawk, a deer and a couple of herons as well. This run didn’t have as many houses along it as the other parts of the creek do, probably to starting in a more rural area and the fact that the creek bottom is fairly wide and flat in most places. In warmer weather we would probably start from CR 100 S to avoid the golf course. Access to the creek is easy there and you can walk down right next to the bridge.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Christmas Boats
Tucker & Austin got new boats for Christmas this year. Here they are trying them out on Boone's Pond. They had fun paddling around even though they had to break ice to make room to maneuver
Thursday, November 15, 2007
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.
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