Greens Bayou – East Mt. Houston Road to Green River Dr.
After June’s exploratory trip, I was ready to lead an HCC trip. I had contacted Danny Erdeljac, owner of
Rio Bravo Motorcycle Park before going on the June trip to ask about parking and learned that Danny has been active in the Greens Bayou Coalition for some time. For this trip, Danny Jr and Glenn Brady joined us for the paddle. Keith and I were early and got the full tour of Rio Bravo from Glenn. (Among their policies is a no kill policy for critters on the premises – which our family also follows.)
Seven paddlers in six boats made the trip: Will Blumentritt, Keith Williams, Kent Walters (new member), Gary Ables, Linda Weatherwood, and Glenn Brady & Danny Erdeljac Jr from Rio Bravo Motorcycle Park.
We met at 8:00 am and ran a shuttle down to Green River Drive (about 15 minutes each way). This 5 mile trip has a good amount of shade in the morning, which is very welcome.
We took this trip at a very leisurely pace. The water level was about as low as you would want to paddle with occasional lightly dragging the bottom in the ripples. The
gage up at IH-59 (08076000) – well upstream of our put-in – showed about 30 CFS (it was 25 CFS in June). This portion of the bayou is very quiet, cool, and peaceful – a very pleasant experience.
There are a dozen or so riffles on this trip. About half of them had a boat or two, slightly bottom out with an occasional need to drag the boat a few feet. But it is nice to have a little movement in the water and hear the sounds of the water. Oddly enough, the rapid at Brock Golf Course was not a rapid at all this time. I’m not sure if that was due to the high water from the previous Monday washing out some debris or just the small change in water level, but it was easy just paddle upstream or just hover in the stream just lightly paddling. Back in June, it was not possible to paddle up that rapid.
As we got to Green River Dr, Danny and Glenn took out as planned and the other 5 of us headed upstream on Halls Bayou. Due to low water, tires, and the dragging the boats uphill, we did not get very far. That did not at all keep us from having a great time. We ended up sitting in our boats for 30-60 minutes just enjoying the coolness of the shade, talking about paddling, boats, and whatever. And this was a group that had really never met each other! (Keith was the only one I had ever paddled with.) Now we are already making plans for more trips!
Kent took pictures and has posted them – with captions - on the HCC pictures page,
here.
Trip Data: