Saturday's launch could very well be from your front door!

The good news is "no shuttling". Hanna will bring the launch site to you. All our group has to do, is meet at an agreed upon spot on the water. Sorry Fran, this looks like one of those Saturdays that might be good for a meeting. The question is where? Salisbury, Lexington or Winston? I'm open to suggestions. Borders, Barnes & Nobles or Starbucks

801 to Boone's Cave to Salisbury Pump Station- Terry's Pictures

Listen to some good music while you watch the slide show, click forward until you find a song you like.

Idols Dam News Story in Winston Salem Journal- Hopefully this story will lead to making the area safer for boaters, paddlers, fishermen and others

We hope today's story in the Journal will help eliminate what we consider one of the most dangerous portage areas in the Yadkin River Basin. Thanks to the Journal for bringing this to the attention of their readers. Hopefully with the help of the City of Winston-Salem Utilities, Montie Hamby and Mr. Comer working together, we can make the area a lot safer. Paddlers too most take some responsibility for safety measures as well. To read the story in today's Journal, click on the title below:

Making the Yadkin Safer

Thanks to the Winston Salem Journal news reporter Lisa O'Donnell for her story on the dangers of Idols Dam. Thanks also to news photographer Lauren Carroll for her photos.

801 to Boone's Cave to Salisbury Pump Station

Listen to some good music while you watch the slide show, click forward until you find a song you like.

Boone's Cave Dwellers- 801 to Pump Station Run

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.

Fast Ride Today

Image by wabberjocky via Flickr The CFS is 2530 as of 6:30 AM, this should make for a quick paddle trip today for our group. Weather should not be a factor. ETA at Boones Cave should be 10:15 am and ETA for Salisbury Pump Station should be 1:00 PM

While we are paddling enjoy the video Mike composed from last Saturday's Paddle.

Click Here

Hwy 801 Access in Davie Countie- To Salisbury Pump Station is a Go

This is going to be fun run. We will probably reach Boone's Cave in a little over an hr. This same run was at 1900 CFS in April when Fran took the trip with the Land Trust. We may very well may be in that range we launch Saturday morning from the 801 access. Below is a map of our run for Saturday. Launch time is 9:00 am, but shuttle time will be 8:00 am. Please read the prior post about shuttling. The blue arrows on the map below give you direction of the shuttle route, there is a lot quicker way to go by back roads. The red arrows mark the direction of the shuttle for those going the distance to the Pump Station. "Click on Map for larger view"


Current Stream Flow as of 8:00 am this morning.