Brazos Buzzard Run
Nov. 27, 2013
by Kent Walters
After many days of solid overcast and rain, this day broke cloudless and crisp. David Jacobs and I met at the Sugar Land Memorial Park take-out, left a car and shuttled to our put-in behind the park at 3rd and A Street in Rosenberg. The range of water craft arrayed at the put-in was pretty amazing, given the quantity – David was in a Remix 69 (8’ 4”) and I brought my Looksha 17 – just a tad over twice the length of the shortest boat in the flotilla. After getting the boats ready and getting through the “after flood” mud to the water, we got the bottoms of our boats wet – one of us in the classic form of straddling the craft over the seat and dropping in, the other sliding off the bank with a flawless “seal” entry. Launch was accomplished at about 10:50 AM, into a fairly consistent flow of about 3 MPH. The banks on each side of the river were quite high, affording protection most of the time from the worst of the wind. The river was wide, so in the areas where the river lined up with the wind, we got it full in the face, which felt quite good.
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David midway through
his “seal” entry |
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Typical view from
my kayak |
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David rolling
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We kept up a pretty good pace from the start, which made the author a little uncomfortable not because of the exercise, but because of his poor judgment in eating four Jack-in-the-Box tacos for breakfast (that’s not going to happen again). But no big deal. We continued paddling with the occasional floating rest stop, where we had lots of discussion about gear and other fun stuff. About an hour into the paddling, David was getting pretty warm and demonstrated some rolls – he’s pretty good at it, in case any of you didn’t already know.
Throughout the trip, we saw many ibis, heron and a hawk or two. No alligators or hogs this time. The banks were generally steep with a lot of willow and willow-derivative trees lining the margins and out into the water about 10-20 feet. The only other noticeable bit of nature was a large dredge that was not operating as we paddled past.
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| The dreaded dredge |
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Sometimes the river
got very steep... |
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This expression sums
up the overall feeling
of the trip |
At the end of our run, the takeout, as is often the case, proved to be the most challenging part of the trip. We had to thread our way though a pretty dense willow forest to the usual muddy bank with a pretty steep drop-off. David backed in and got himself in land without any drama. I, on the other hand, ran my boat up farther than I thought into the bank and when I started to exit, tipped over for a full dunking at the last possible second. That was the prelude to a medium length, but in many places steep and very slick exit path to the car. As always, we made it and did some cleanup before loading everything into and onto the van (which gave me some time to air dry), and we completed our shuttle without further incident.
Stat summary:
Time: 3 hours, 54 minutes (all time on the water was moving)
Distance: 19.32 miles
Average ground speed: 4.95 MPH
Overall, a great trip, with good companionship, lots of miles and plenty of variety for the time on the water.
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Gauge |
Stats:
Start Time: 11/27/2013 10:50:01 AM CST
Acquisition Time: 11/27/2013 10:50:01 AM CST
Finish Time: 11/27/2013 3:02:01 PM CST Central Standard Time (CST) is GMT-6
Distance: 19.32 mi
Average Speed: 4.6 MPH
Average Moving Speed: 5.0 MPH
Maximum Speed: 13.8 MPH
Average Elevation: 59 feet
Minimum Elevation: 27 feet
Maximum Elevation: 125 feet
Average Status: 3-D
Fix Was Lost: 0 times
Readings: 6552
Acquisition Street: 3rd St
Acquisition Location: Rosenberg, Texas (77471)
Finish Location: N/A
Acquisition Coordinate: N29° 34.0613' W95° 48.4105'
Finish Coordinate: N29° 33.4898' W95° 38.5906'
Time from Start to Finish: 4:12:00 (hr:min:sec)
Time to Acquire: 0:00:00 (hr:min:sec)
Time from Acquisition to Finish: 4:12:00 (hr:min:sec)
Time Moving: 3:53:39 (hr:min:sec)
Time Stopped: 0:18:21 (hr:min:sec)