Kayaking the Buffalo River (somewhat picture intensive, fyi)

Here is J and I about to put in at the Ponca low water bridge.  There was approx. 24” of airspace under the bridge at 2 pm on wed 5/19.

 

Here is J heading down the river for what looked to be a pretty uneventful float of the Buffalo.

Here is a view from our campsite (Jim’s Bluff).  Notice that we pulled the kayaks up a few feet as to make sure the river wouldn’t rise and reach them.  We knew it was supposed to rain that night, but figured a few feet above the river should do it.  We also tied the kayaks to the tree, thank God.

Here is the river the next morning for comparison sake.  It rose over 5 feet in about 10 hours.  Yes, the kayaks are floating.

Here is our campsite which protected us from a pretty incredible storm (thunder, lightening, and several inches of rain).

Wed. afternoon we got a hike into Hemmed-in-Hollow.  That is J and I at the bottom left of the picture.  The fall is 220 feet or so.  The tallest in mid-America.  I wont mention that I have rappelled it.  That would be borderline bragging. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpoeFpxDV6A)

Here is a view of the campsite from the river.             

Here is a view of the campsite the next morning.  We thought we were hearing that waterfall for most of the night and didn’t realize that we were actually hearing rain the entire night.

A waterfall and Romans is a great way to start off any morning.

More or less a view from where I was sitting in the previous picture.  When we were returning from our hike to hemmed-in-hollow, we saw two deer start to check out our tent.  We never saw them again.

Nothing like toasted bagels and peanut butter for a hearty breakfast.

J and I enjoying breakfast on Thur morning.

This is the creek that is fed by hemmed-in-hollow.  After the rain that we got, we just had to go check out the fall the next morning.  (I will post a video of the falls that morning, words wont do it justice)

I am going to pause here and apologize for not taking any pictures of the swollen river (did I mention it was 3 feet above flood level?).  J and I did get dumped once and the ride that we got to have (I say ride, it was more like a float down a torrent through a forest) was humbling.  We only went a mile before we got out and decided to wait a day before getting back on.  The first question we got when we pulled into Kyle’s Landing was, “how did ya’ll get on the river?  the NPS isn’t letting any one on.”  We answered, “yeah, that is probably a pretty good idea.”  We had 4 different groups come find us to ask us how we got on the river and how bad was it.  Needless to say, it was probably a very good idea we didn’t try the next 4 miles section of river at the rate it was flowing on Thur because even on Fri it was pretty hairy.

 

Just for a point of reference, when we floated in on Thur afternoon this pole was completely submerged.  The red part of the pole means that the river is in a flood stage, but the pole was covered as we came into Kyle’s Landing.  This is the pole on Fri morning.

This was a downed tree (did I mention that the river flooded and we saw carnage that was pretty incredible the rest of the float?) across the river.  I saw this as we turned an almost 90 degree corner and luckily we were both able to get to the gravel bar and not get sucked into the current.  There was about 2 feet of clearance and neither J nor I are that short.

This is the other side of the tree (which we did call the NPS to tell them about it at the next landing).

Obviously the river calmed down considerably on the lower part and it turned into a true “float”.

The river was flowing so fast (we did a 5.7 mile stretch in less than an hour Fri morn) we took some generous breaks.  And yes, a pfd can double as a pillow.

Yours truly cooking some supper at our campsite on Fri night.

J working on drying out some gear after an eventful Fri morn ride.

Like I said, it was a float towards the end of the river.  All told it turned out incredible.