Keith is Trippin': October 2013

For the first time since I began making the drive to Missouri in the fall to run the Current River, I decided to run the trip as a COP trip, and see who would sign up. At one point I had 14 people signed up, but this eventually met pre-trip attrition and was reduced to 8 people. (and 2 dogs, Daisy a seasoned river tripper, and Vinnie on his first trip). This was going to be a great recovery trip for me, after my blood loss and surgery in August.

We headed out Saturday morning in 3 vehicles, including Walt's Truck. After driving in some pretty intense rain along I-44, we spent the night in a Super 8 in Sullivan, MO. This left us am 1.5 hour drive to Akers Ferry, where...

Bozos - they TRIED to ruin my trip!

Imagine my surprise last on October 6th when we got to the riverbank of the Current River in SE Missouri - and found out the section of river we planned to paddle is in the Ozark National Scenic Waterways (within the Mark Twain National Forest). What all this means is that we were forbidden from getting on the river. The Ozark National Scenic Waterway has the same designation as a National Park - not that this is evident anywhere on the information available. And the phone number on the website is no good, since you cannot get an answer, just a prerecorded message telling us that funding is not available. If we did ignore the shutdown and ran the Current River, we faced a $250 per person, per occurance fine for camping on National Park land. As we were trying to figure what was going to happen to our paddling trip, Marcus from Akers Ferry Canoe Rental came by and offered an idea. He suggested trying the Eleven Point River, which was in National Forest land but not a National Scenic Waterway.

We drove farther south to Riverton, MO (Population 5) and met Mike Jones at Hufstedler's Canoe Rental - he set us up with a shuttle and trip from Cane's Bluff to Riverton. The river was great, but MUCH harder than the Current River - we had several adventures. And to add to the insanity - the Eleven Point crosses the border from Missouri to Arkansas, where we would have once again been subject to a $250 fine. It seems that Missouri helped fund the river access points in the National Forest, while Arkansas did not - thus allowing by whatever arcane rules exist...that the river could once again be closed. We decided to end our canoe trip while still protected by the good folks of Missouri. SE Missouri is probably one of the the most politically conservative areas in the country, but the people there expressed a universal disdain for the Republican congress critters causing this mess.

My expectations. The Eleven Point was much narrower, twistier, and had no potable water resupply. The pace still averaged 6 miles per day, but not so relaxed!

this is a much better map than we had on the trip

Wikipedia entry for the river - Eleven_Point_River

A mile by mile description of the river eleven-point

So, off we go Monday morning for a put-in on the Eleven Point River at Canes Bluff. We had on one very sketchy map that Mike Jones was able to dig up, and Mike Wadkowski brought his Delorme Atlas for Missouri, which was quite useful. I had read some river descriptions of the Eleven Point years ago, and I was concerned about a rapids called "Mary Decker Shoals", and old limestone boulder dam that was regarded as a hard to portage Class 3 rapid. Mike told us it used to hard, but floods in the past 10-12 years had moved the boulders and made the rapids much easier. He also mentioned a "small drop" just above Riverton...

loading boats at the Cane Bluff access (photo by Deena McDonald)

After loading gear and having some lunch, we headed out. It has been many years since I had been on an unknown stretch of river, so we were cautious. Jeff ran first as the scout, with Mike and Kitty behind, then Chris and Deena in their kayaks. Me or Walt were to b e the sweepers, mainly because I was slow. The first 2 hours on the river set the tone for the rest of the week. Jeff would stay ahead, and stop to give advice when we ran into something that involved peril, which was often! The most common feature or obstacle was a chute that would appear at the end of a large, quiet river pool. The chute would get narrow, curve sharply either right or left, and the run out at the bottom of the chute would involve avoiding a downed tree. Sigh. We ran 2 - 2.5 hours on Monday before we found what seemed to be a decent campsite, and allow some of our boaters to to rest the rattled nerves! Mike had told us that campsites on the Eleven Point are to be cherished, so we hesitated to pass one up in the afternoon.

Monday night campsite

Tuesday rolled along much like monday, 30 minutes of tranquil river paddling interspersed with 30 seconds of terror. We were able to pinpoint our location by Tuesday afternoon, when we camped on a very large gravel bar just across from where Greer Spring entered the Eleven Point. Denna and Chris made a lovely Jambalaya for dinner, and then we eventually we to sleep to the sound of the chuckling river.

excellent gravel bar campsite

I observe as Walt tries to paddle up the Greer Spring run.

The river chuckled at us last night because it knew what we had in store for us today. Sometime before lunch, I was playing sweep boat back with Jennifer when we came up on another one of the fun slides from hell, where the river necks down, makes a sharp turn into downed tree. This was was just a little sharper and faster than normal, and in quick succession I saw Chris, then Deena, and then Kitty get swept into the tree and flip. Jennifer quickly pulled her canoe to the side above the chute while I skidded down and eddied out across from the aquanauts. Luckily, there was an eddy just behind the tree, and all three of them were stable and holding on to their boats. Jeff, Walt and Michael were downstream, and managed to catch the floaty bits that escaped. I began the process of getting people over to my side of the bank, since their side was too steep to allow work on the boats. Jeff was able to paddle up to help out, and in quick succession I pulled Deena over, then Deenas boat - Chris, then Chris's boat. Getting Kittys canoe over was tricky, and her food box popped open and sprinkled lunch all over the river! This kept Michael and Walt busy, and we found out that tuna packets will sink. I also lost my waterproof camera somewhere in the process, it fell out of a pocket in my life jacket. But, barring the loss of tuna and camera, we were able to recover rather well. The day was warm, the majority of items in the boat stay dry, and we back on track in about an hour. Later that afternoon we encountered Mary Decker Shoals, and the event was uneventful - the boulders had moved enough to render the rapid to an easy Class 1+ chute. But, we relaxed too soon - later on, Jennifer hit a rock hard enough to flip her boat downstream! I was just below when it happened, and I was able to work my way upstream of where she was trying to hold the boat and move it toward shore. My boat broke the force of the current just enough to let Jennifer move the boat crabwise toward the bank, and Daisy was very brave and stayed inside the boat while we moved it. Michael worked his way up to where we were perched, and we used his bilge pump to remove the water from her boat. Once again, we put things back together and headed back downstream. Jennifer had done a very good job of strapping things in, and nothing was lost. But now we trouble finding a campsite. Michael talked to some fishermen, and they told use of a campsite about a mile downstream across from a high limestone bluff. This turned out to be an excellent place to camp!

Our campsite after Big Swim day

Did I mention the weather was just perfect for the entire trip. It was! Since we had met some power boaters just upstream, I assumed the the river would open up a bit and the fast chute / downed tree hazards would be a thing of the past. Sigh. Just a mile or so downstream we heard Jeff yelling, and Jennifer remarked "what fresh hell is this!" It turned out that another rapid chute, wide enough for a jon boat but very fast, had swept Chris against a tree growing from the bank. But, Chris had stabilized himself against the tree and was upright! Michael and Walt paddled upstream, and then walked along the bank until they could reach Chris. A bit of work on their part and they got Chris off the tree, stable, and then which a mighty shove he was pushed across the fast current and the the safe eddy! I wait downstream with my throw rope, in case of further disaster - and it was not needed. A couple of old fisher dudes in a boat watched the entire performance, and I do believe gave us a nod a approval when it was all finished.
So off we went again, avoiding the fast chute and pinning tree, for another lovely day of ocassionally tense paddling.

A non tension inducing section of the river

Jennifer and Daisy

Late in the afternoon we were looking at a possible campsite that turned to be a "scenic-easement" - no camping.

Jeff is baffled by the Scenic Easement

But right across the river was a gravel bar island, somewhat low but very usable given the lack of rain in our future.

a bucolic campsite scene

After a fine dinner of Chicken and Dumplings (Thanks, Mike & Kitty!), we built a peaceful campfire (Thanks, Chris!) and had yet another uneventful evening. I must add that Vinnie has been behaving very well, and will be a fine river trip dog.

Friday dawned with morning fog again, but with promise of yet another beautiful day. We are somewhat saddened to know that somewhere downstream lies out take out, and hopefully our vehicles! (a sidenote - Tuesday afternoon we met James from Richard's Canoe Livery link at the Route 19 boat ramp. Since we had not been making many miles, we asked James if he would call Mike Jones and ask him not to move our cars downstream...)

morning

We eventually moved out and headed downstream. Another lovely day!

Kitty takes a break with Michael and Vinnie

Sometime after breakfast, Jeff realizes we are on the feared "last rapid". It is a very fast, rocky chute that from right to left, with plenty of things to run into and bounce over. The rapid drops about 4 feet over a length of 30 yards...and everyone runs it just fine. Jennifer ran very far right against the bank, and did just fine, despite the black cloud of profanity that followed her thru the rapid.

After that, it was a very relaxing paddle, until we saw the Route 160 bridge. This signaled our take out, but we were unsure just where to take out. We had lunch on a gravel bar just above the bridge, and decided how to finish the trip. We took out at the very nice Riverton East boat ramp, and Michael walked across the road and found our vehicles still parked at Husteadlers. (Yippie!)

The tedious work of unloading

a week later, and the idiots are still playing games

the tedious job of loading...

And off we go, done with this river trip.

And a fine trip it was, despite the rocky start and the occasional upset.

Here is a link to my photo album - Boating Trips - October 2013 Eleven Point River