May 5 Forks to Brown Bridge Dam
Published on 5/5/2010
It was just John and me and our new Tampico 135s heading down our hometown river for an afternoon jaunt. The river was stunning, with very little litter (except for the ugly "shoe tree" constructed by stupid horsemen who don't seem to value the natural state of the river) all the way to the head of the pond. The Boardman has carved itself a nice deep channel as you enter the open area, all the way around to the left and then beyond the two downed trees. No problem getting through there. BUT, as you turn from north back to the west, the water spreads out across the mud flats, about an inch deep, so that there is no way you can float a kayak or canoe through the area.
It reminded me of the time that John Walton got stuck in the mud up to his waist, and had to take off his shorts in his kayak so he could continue on. We have photos of that incident!
So John Heiam and I headed left and towed our boats across the sand peninsula that reaches out from shore. The problem is that the soil immediately next to the land is icky gooey MUD. Fortunately it was a nice day and the straps on our river sandals were on tight; otherwise our shoes would be forever lost in the muck. We had the same mud to contend with as we re-entered our kayaks, but we managed to push off using our paddles as levers. Fortunately we had the foresight to put on spray skirts beforehand since the wind gusts were directly in our faces all the way to the takeout. On the news that night, the meteorologists reported wind gusts up to 50 MPH. It felt like that! Still, we kept dry and moving forward and were surprised to do the crossing in only 20 minutes. If we stopped paddling at all, we were blown backwards.
Hopefully the river will form a real channel later this season in the eastern end of Brown Bridge Pond, because for the time being, I'm not going back there! Who knows what will happen if and when they take down the dam?
Lois Goldstein