Saturday was a lot of (fun. The river was at "Full Pond" . Our stream flow was still "cooking "at 2530 cubic feet per second. We were able to take the "Express Run" to Boone's Cave and the Salisbury Pump Station Access.
Our run from "801 to Boone's Cave" only took 50 minutes and the entire 8.8 mile run to the Pump Station only took 2 hrs and 5 minutes. The GPS showed us moving along at 4 mph and that was without paddling. This 4 mph was our GPS reading just before Boone's Cave. The river flattened out a little after after Boone's Cave.
Yesterday's paddle down the Yadkin was a great ride and made for a really wonderful time . It's amazing how much different this run was from the 10.9 miles we paddled from the Shallowford Road Access to Tanglewood. That Saturday our group paddled a historical low flow. There were plenty of rocks to dodge along the way. It took us 6 hrs to paddle the 10.9 miles to Tanglewood. Today we felt like we actually needed to paddle another 4 hrs to even feel like a paddle. A lot rain sure does make a difference in how a river paddle.
Presently there is no excursion planned for next week. We did toss up some ideas of paddling the Uwharrie or Dan Rivers. The only plans we all agreed upon was to do some more self rescue drills and have a" low country boil" afterwards, with a little fishing thrown in. This should happen sometime before some of our paddlers head out to Hunting Island, State Park in the next few weeks.
We have a group of paddlers now, that have no boundaries. My dreams of camping out under the lighthouse at Cape Lookout are fast becoming a reality. Hopefully the Hunting Island Trip, will be a start of a lot of great excursions in the years to come. I hope our group will be able to paddle the Cape Lookout/Harker's Island area sometime in the Spring or early summer of 2009. During the winter months we will sit down and make plans on where we might want to go and what we want to accomplish as a group in 2009, while having a lot of fun in the process. We've accomplished a lot in our first year, so next year can only be better.
What's involved with the Hunting Island trip and when is it?
ReplyDeleteDeborah,
ReplyDeleteThe Hunting Island Excursion was first come, first served limited participation trip. This was a trip a few of our members put together on their own, a few weeks back. The Hunting Island Excursion is sort of trial run, to see if this is something our group wants to start doing more of. Now if everyone has a good time, expect to see more trips like these in 2009. We may want to spend a weekend on Port smith or Cape Lookout in the Spring of 2009. Let's hope the Hunting Island trip proves to be a success, because it will take our paddle excursions to a new level.
Please feel free to email me or call me if you have any time you have a question.
We might do a camp out at Pilot Mountain the 3rd or 4th Week in October. This all depends on when the fall leave changes hits it's peak.
Neal