Spring Creek
April 6th, 2013
by Natalie Wiest
Trip facilitators: Terry Herdlicka and Will Blumentritt
11 boats on the water; 14 folks paddling
We met at Pundt Park (4129 Spring Creek Dr, Spring, TX) at 8:30 a.m. Note: the place to meet is straight down the road from the entrance, on to the unpaved road, to a nice large paved parking lot and an equally nice restroom facility. The put-in itself is on down the unpaved road, which becomes a single track, one way loop road. You’ll need to carry your boats and gear at least 100 yards onto a large sandbar at the edge of the creek. Terry Morgan tells me the distance was actually only 40 yards, but sure seemed longer than that to me!
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Photo by Natalie Wiest |
What with running shuttles, some to the Jesse Jones Park take-out, and some on down past the Hwy 59 crossing of the San Jacinto River, it was 10 a.m. until we all shoved off to paddle on downstream.
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Three generations on the
water; Terry Herdlicka,
daughter Sonya Pursell
and grandaughter Nola,
and Darron Metcalf and
Anastacia.
Photo by Natalie Wiest
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The usual range of boats and paddlers applied; age range from 5 to 70; canoes and kayaks; singles, tandems, sit-on-tops, sit-ins.
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Sherry Blifford on the water
Photo by Natalie Wiest
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There are many ways to enjoy being on the water and we all had a grand time, despite minimal water levels (I don’t recommend paddling at levels any lower than this!) and scraping and pushing and dragging over sandbars.
The streambanks are heavily wooded; and the banks and most stream bottoms pure sand. It’s really a beautiful place to paddle; 9 miles to Jesse Jones; 12 miles to the San Jacinto.
Weather was near perfect – cool to start, but getting up well into the 70s after noon. Only bummer was the wind, a steady 13 to 15 mph southerlies or south-southeast. By early afternoon there were gusts to 20 mph and the group who paddled onto the San Jacinto River got the full brunt of the high winds on the much more open river.
Generous sandbars gave us plenty of space for taking a break and to have lunch.
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The happy paddlers
Photo by Natalie Wiest
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John Michael Williams
Photo by Sherri Blifford
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Will Blumentritt
Photo by Sherry Blifford
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Caught in the act –
Terry Herdlicka
Photo by Sherri Blifford
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Kenny
Photo by Terri Morgan
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Gage information for our trip:
USGS Texas Streamflow 08068500: 60 CFS, 1.5 ft. Spring Creek near Spring TX
For Cypress Creek at Westfield 08069000: 80 cfs, 64.5 ft.
Despite the apparent readings, Spring Creek has a much higher flow than Cypress Creek. They flow together just a mile or so upstream of Jesse Jones Park.
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Your correspondent and
her favorite paddling partner
Photo by Terri Morgan
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| The author, Natalie Wiest |