Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Healing Waters of Lee Creek

My friend John and I floated Lee Creek from the usual ACC takeout down about ten miles to what they call Natural Dam. Because of water levels and some other reasons, this section that didn't get cleaned during the 2nd Annual Lee Creek Cleanup Day in September that drew about 200 volunteers. I don't know how much two guys in one canoe can do to clean ten miles of river bank, but we did our best to get the really ugly stuff. We met a landowner about half way down who was kind enough to dispose of the used tire and other trash we collected. That lightened up our load so we could pick up more stuff. It was my first time ever in a canoe and the third time for John's 2 1/2 month-old border collie who has no idea how incredibly lucky she is. At the end of the day, it was much less about picking up trash and much more about two friends and a dog enjoying a beautiful stretch of river that doesn't get paddled very often. We we're the only ones on it because no one else wanted to "waste" a day of great whitewater somewhere else just to paddle ten miles of Class I. It hardly felt like a wasted day.









5 comments:

bulletholes said...

Nice view view of Arkansas Davy!

Dave Renfro said...

Yeah, I'm trying to lure you up here for a few days of camping before all the leaves fall. This is just downstream Devil's Den State Park which has beautiful camp sights.

Get your ass up here, Stevie!

Matt Taylor said...

Really cool stuff man. Looks like a cool stretch. Maybe I can practice my C1 skills on it at some point.

Dave Renfro said...

Thanks for stopping by, Matt! Yeah, might be good C1 practice at a higher level. I think it was about 5.5' when we were on it and there wasn't much play, just a few places. We did take on about 5" of water about a mile before the 59 bridge, but otherwise we stayed completely dry. Nice to run it, though. I'd like to run Devil's Den to 220 sometime just to finish it up.

SYOTR!
~Dave

Anonymous said...

I envy your life of water adventure. The closest I get to whitewater drama is when the water shuts off in the middle of the shower.

There's a Devil's Den in Gettysburg, by the way. I spent a lot of time there getting high in my misspent youth.

Hey Dave!

UF Mike