For those of us who left from the Houston area, after a while on the road, the sunrise in the rear-view mirror was spectacular. Christy Long, Harmon Everett, Amy McGee, David Portz and I (Kent Walters) met at the takeout and shuffled a couple of boats and people, and arrived at Sewell Park / City Park / Lions Club Tubing center at about 9:20 AM. Preparations took about 15 minutes, and we were underway by about 9:35 AM.
Those who had never paddled in this section of the river were stunned at the clarity of the water. We could see each individual pebble on the bottom, along with the plants, fish and turtles.
At Rio Vista there is a dam with the center knocked out, which provides an exciting drop into a large pressure wave at the bottom, with two additional smaller drops and pools below the main drop. Those who attempted it got wet, as did one who portaged from a failed attempt at re-entry. I lost my butt paste (my form of sunblock) along with some of the water that filled my cockpit.
Shortly after the Rio Vista experience, we came upon Thompson Dam, which we portaged – a fairly simple matter of getting out of the boats, pulling them about 50 feet to “old stream” below the dam, and continuing along our way.
The river, as noted in the pre-trip package, was a little higher than average, which had the effect of making some of the bridges very short. Thompson Island Road Bridge was one of these, but we all managed it by ducking as we went under. I think this is the bridge where I hit quite a bit of hanging flotsam that was jammed in between the bridge slats with my head, and it all came down on and around me and all of the branches and sticks floated down the river with me, “Pig-Pen”-style. About a hundred yards later we rejoined the “official” San Marcos River.
The next section of river was beautiful, with a full, green canopy, plenty of little riffles to keep us moving along and to keep things interesting. I think it was in this section where a snake was spotted on a log as we went past. Someone said he saw an alligator, but I’m pretty sure this was the result of some deep-seated need for recognition. I didn’t see an alligator, so it did not exist (or did it?).
The next “milestone” event was when we paddled through the confluence of the Blanco River with the San Marcos River. This was not a big deal for paddling – just a lot of water coming from two directions. However, this is where the canopy opened up a little more.
Just past this joining of the waters we came upon a big deal for paddling - Cummings Dam. We edged over river right to the obvious landing point next to the concrete – a small, canoe-sized spit of gravel against the 4’ wall. We would be calling this “home” for the next 20 minutes or so while we figured out how to work our boats down the other side, which was about 20’ above ground/water level. In the very early part of our cyphering, we noticed a ubiquitous “presence” in the form of ants – first we noticed a thick trail of them on top of the dam wall. Then we noticed other trails on the near side of the wall. Then we noticed that there was not a square inch on the side of the wall or top of the wall with fewer than 10 ants. Backing away from the wall, we noticed the ground was moving. You guessed it – ants. Backing into the water, more ants. Okay, so there were a lot of ants, and they did not seem to be particularly bothered by insect repellant, perhaps because there was no place to get away from it that did not already have an ant there.
Back to the obstacle (that was covered with ants), Christy and Harmon were first with the canoe. They stood on the wall, which was about a foot and a half thick, and used the painters to try to lower the canoe down the side of the wall. After a couple of tries where the canoe tipped sideways, they got it going down, and then one end of it started going down very fast when the rope started burning the person holding it. So the canoe found its way to the bottom, and Harmon and Christy walked along the top of the wall about 50 feet to where there was a narrow, overgrown trail along the back side of the abutment to the front of the structure. What the hell? The Texas Junior Water Safari race was just two weeks ago, and this path is so overgrown that it looks like it has not been used for a year! But I digress . . . continuing, Harmon and Christy made it down to the canoe, where we can only assume they started checking to see that all was still secure. The kayaks went over the wall bow-first, with ropes tied to their aft ends, and with a gracious assist from Harmon, who climbed up a kind of berm structure on the tall side of the dam wall and took control of the boats from the bottom, were gently placed at the bottom of the dam(n) wall. It would have been great to show you, dear reader, some pictures of this process, but we were fully engaged with the process. In the spirit of Alice’s Restaurant, I have provided you with the following 8x10 color glossy photograph with circles and arrows and a paragraph explaining what each one is:
In the overhead photo of the dam, you can see this process, starting with the yellow path leading to the tiny “beach”, with the boats continuing over the wall to the other side at that point. Then the fuchsia squiggle traces our little hike across the dam to the overgrown path, through the thicket and down to the boats, where finally the orange line shows the mercifully clear path for carrying the boats across the escarpment to the water. One more thing . . . Can you imagine in your mind’s eye the area adjacent to all of the colored lines, for at least 5 feet on each side and under and over each line? That’s where the ants were.
Whew! We waived goodbye to the ants and headed downstream for just a few minutes before we passed under the Westerfield Crossing, which was no big deal - a fancy name for going under a bridge.
In short order arrived at the shores of the San Marcos River Retreat, aka the San Marcos River Scout Camp, aka Tom’s Place, where we decided to take our lunch break. We went to Christy’s campsite, where we met her husband, Steve, and had a leisurely lunch in the full sun that had developed, told some lies, and took our final turns in the facilities.
While we were making final preparations to get back on the water, Amy dropped her inflatable PFD in the water, and we all suddenly became acquainted with the operation of those things. Suffice it to say that the transition from flat to full is not subtle.
Lunch at Tom’s Place
We politely declined the beers offered to us by the tubers as we passed them and got back to business on the river. I had ordered up full cloud coverage for this more open part of the trip, and a high, thin layer of clouds appeared, right on schedule.
We enjoyed several minutes of fast-then-slow water and good conversation when we suddenly came upon Cottonseed Rapids. It started as a few rocks and hydraulics, then quickly escalated to ledges and shelves. I can only recount my experience going through this in a long kayak because I was too busy to see what the other folk were going through. I could clearly see where I wanted to go to a kind of slide rock shelf right in the middle of the rapids, but the current shoved my boat to the outer curve where I knew I did not want to go, and I ended up dropping right over a very abrupt ledge. I did not tip over, but the ledge caught the back of my boat and hit the retracted rudder pivot with enough force to break its cradle and pulley mechanism. Bummer. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t use it that often, but from Cottonseed on, I had no choice. Rudder down for the rest of the trip.
Everyone came out right-side-up on the other side of Cottonseed with his/her own story, and we continued in alternating flat, slow and medium water to Skulls Crossing (another bridge/landmark). We continued past a lot of trees that had been uprooted. I believe it was on this segment of the river that an eagle kept flying ahead of us carrying a fish. It finally figured out that we would keep coming and flew back over us. We are pretty sure it was a Mexican eagle, probably an illegal immigrant.
Up next was Martindale Dam and Martindale Low Water Crossing. We portaged the dam (a relatively easy out, walk around and down, and back in. The low water crossing was about 100 yards downstream and caused some pause in a couple of us. We were advised that there was a pipe sticking up in the middle, hidden by the pressure waves and foam, which had pinned long boats in the past. The double-whammy was that the water was high enough that there was very little clearance. Christy and Harmon elected to blast through and succeeded. David decided to go for it (see photo). Amy and I had been pushed around so much throughout the trip by unseen currents that we decided to portage.
David preparing to not get hit by the bridge while navigating the rapid.
The last six miles were exactly as described: a regular height bridge at 1979, some fast current with sweepers and small rapids, and still water the last two miles above Staples Dam.
What a great day!
We finished off with the normal back and forth to get people, boats and vehicles sorted and back together. The drive home was highlighted with a spectacular sunset behind and a rainbow ahead.
Statistics:
16.37 miles
4 portages
1 lunch
7 hours and 55 minutes GPS start to stop
3 hours and 48 minutes moving
Water gauge:
Wildlife:
1 Mexican Eagle
Several Great Blue Herons
1 Night Heron
1 Little Blue Heron
3 juvenile herons I could not identify
1 Ibis
1 snake
Lots of turtles
Some vultures
- Kent Walters