Every once in a while we hit on that “Perfect Trip” and Thursday, April 16 was one of those days for me, Tom Douglas and Linda Shead and Joe Coker.
On a previous virus relief day trip, Tom had mentioned he would like to return to an area he calls the “Ghost Forest”. This would require a high enough water level to venture out from Cedar Hill Park on Lake Charlotte. At ll.8 feet on the gage, it was high enough and it took very little urging for him to round up Linda Shead as his bow partner, and Joe Coker and me in kayaks on such a quest.
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Click photos to enlarge |
The day dawned bright and cool with temperatures in the upper 60s as we met at the park and set our boats in the water.
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| Gator alley |
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We headed west toward the Mac Bayou entrance, and confirmed that the current there was quite strong and headed directly against us, so we slipped south through Gator Alley and at its southern end headed north into the forest, now floatable with plenty of water.
Our skilled navigators (omitting only myself) guided us pretty much due north, then northwestward to parallel Mac Bayou to a point where we knew we would run into the former double pipeline that ran from someplace father north and east and had a road running next to it. Not a vehicle worthy road today, but a raised roadway which we’d seen vestiges of from former transits and from Mac Bayou. Here it is where we ran into the road and pulled our boats onto shore. The roadway was quite walkable so we set out to explore on foot.
The pipeline was quite deteriorated in places.
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| The roadway |
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Exploring
on foot |
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Pipeline
deterioration |
We enjoyed a high and dry lunch along the roadbed before setting out again, this time down the flooded waterway from the pipe’s end and toward the “Ghost Forest”
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| High & dry lunch |
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Pipe's end |
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Thorns |
The passageway was not without its challenges, such as these locust tree thorns, and from our lunch spot wild orange tree thorns and lots of poison ivy.
We emerged in the Ghost Forest much as Tom remembered it from years ago. It appears whatever may have been dumped in the forest from those pipes had something toxic in it. Trees try to grow but die by the time they reach 10 or 15 feet. Many that were standing were quite dead and we could push them out of our way, toppling them into the water. Pickerel weed took advantage of increased sunlight and perhaps was more tolerant of growing conditions but it too was somewhat stunted.
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| Trees |
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Pickerel weed |
What shows on the topo map as open water was barely paddleable even at that day’s high water level. Likely flooding over the years has added a silt load that is gradually filling in the lake.
The navigators determined that our location in the lake had to be quite close to the Sulphur Cut.
We could not see it from our boats, but Linda jumped out at a likely looking spot and voila! Only yards away from the cut. Time to lift and drag boats again, but only that short distance and we were soon floating up the willow-lined cut.
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| Navigators |
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Willow-lined cut |
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Secret Passage |
We continued to Mac Bayou where it zig zags across the cut and continues northwest to Mac Lake – and to Secret Passage and Secret Lake. Paddling this area reminded us of many pleasant trips we had all made with Dave Kitson and we decided to visit the spot where his ashes became one with the bayou. That’s on Secret Lake. We found the entry passage choked with sprouting giant salvinia but otherwise as beautiful as ever.
Here is the photo Linda Shead took of the three of us remembering Dave in the place we had scattered his ashes. He would have loved this trip.
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| Dave's Spot |
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| Through the woods |
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Pushing navigational skills and particularly unknown vegetation density to the test, we decided to go for one more uncharted adventure of the day – a through-the-woods connection from Secret Lake to Mac Lake. Well, by golly, that worked too, and soon we popped out at Mac Lake, led by the adventurous Joe.
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Mac Bayou |
We had enough bushwhacking for the day, and were delighted to take advantage of the quick flow down Mac Bayou to take us back to Lake Charlotte.
The day’s adventure and alternate paths were not quite over. When we reached Lake Charlotte we observed whitecaps and high winds over the open waters, so we opted to paddle through the trees as long as we could to get back to the put-in. Although wind was diminished, the waves were sizable even among the trees – reminded me a lot of my old whitewater slalom days. It all worked, and we arrived at the takeout revitalized and in awe of the marvelous day we had.
Tom produced a great map of our travel, to which I’ve added a few geographic titles. You won’t find “Alligator Alley”, “Ghost Lake”, or “Secret Lake” on any official map but the naming works for us.
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| Map |
Statistics for the trip:
Miles paddled: 6.4
Time on the trip: 5 hours, 38 minutes
Temperature range: 68 at 10:30; 71 at 12:30; 72 at 4 p.m
Wind: from the east, steady 15-20 mph, gusting to 25
Open Water paddling speed: .9 to 1.2 mph
Speed down Mac Bayou with the current: 3.2 to 5 mph
Water level: 11.8 feet, USGS gage 08067118 (Lake Charlotte)
Participants: Joe Coker, Linda Shead, Tom Douglas, Natalie Wiest