Buffalo River trip, Day 4, April 23, 2015

Jerry heads downstream

Up early at our drying spot on the sandbar and on the river by 9 a.m. The plan was to spend Thursday night at Mount Hersey seven miles downstream.

After about an hour and a half of paddling, Jerry suggested we stop and grab a snack. We saw a perfect landing spot on the left side of the river and started over for it. There was a stream coming in just to the left of the landing, which meant a hard paddle across current onto a bank. When I got across the current and up on the bank, I could see a sign that read, “Mount Hersey.” We had gone the 6 or 7 miles in less than two hours.

We had good water and I think we had become more proficient at reading the water and staying in the current. We had our lunch and talked about what to do. We decided to push on to Woolum as it was not yet noon and we had less than 10 miles to go to the take-out spot.

After the quick run down the river to Mount Hersey, I was feeling more than a little confident about my kayaking ability. I had been paddling with the waterproof map carrier in my lap the whole trip and had been checking  the maps while in quiet waters. Now I thought I could study the map no matter what the water was doing. Which is how I found “Rollover Rock.”

Here’s what the “Buffalo River Handbook” says about that part of the river: “. . . an unnamed pool ends at a chute having massive boulders, including an eight-foot specimen near midstream that river guide Jack Hensley calls Rollover Rock.” (Page 195).

I felt the rock before I saw it, as in I felt the kayak tipping to the left, looked away from the map and saw there was a  huge rock under me that was lifting the right side of the kayak. One quick paddle stroke to the left got me over the rock and barely kept me from rolling over.

Jerry paddled up to me in the next pool. “You know, you really shouldn’t text while paddling,” he said.

Lesson learned: Keep eyes on the river, especially in fast current.

Passing by Skull Bluff, which looks like . . . the eye sockets in a skull.

That current got us down to Woolum in a hurry, and we headed straight for the sign when we saw it. For some reason, the National Parks Service has the sign on the right side of the river even though the landing is on the left side. Richland Creek comes into the Buffalo River here, which made paddling across the strong current of the Buffalo even trickier. We aimed high upstream and I barely made it to the landing on its downstream side.

We walked up to the parking lot and beheld a beautiful sight: The truck. Glad Mitch had suggested bringing it a day early. Drove it right down to the river and loaded the kayaks and shot a promo photo for Dodge Ram.

Then a drive to Branson, MO., celebrated with barbequed ribs before trying to sort the wet clothes from the dry. Sorting the clean from the dirty was easier: they’re all dirty, sign of a successful camping trip.