By March 29, several of us were beginning to feel the need to get outdoors for a little while. The idea wasn’t to do a big time paddle outing, just to get a little bit of sun and fresh air while maintaining social distancing because of the pandemic. Linda Shead, Tom Douglas, Joe Coker, Natalie Wiest, and Ellen Shipman converged on Cedar Hill Park for a “smell the flowers” style paddle at Lake Charlotte. We elected to place a priority on spending some quality time back in the flooded forest as much as possible. With that in mind, we paddled over to the mouth of Mac Bayou. There was a respectable current coming down the bayou, as would be expected when the water depth at the Lake Charlotte USGS gauge is 11.2 feet, which it was today. In keeping with our “smell the flowers” idea, we paddled just a little ways up Mac Bayou, then rode its current back down through Gator Alley and out into Lake Charlotte.
 |
|
 |
| Up Mac Bayou |
|
Snails at Gator Alley |
After going about 200 feet to the west, we took advantage of the first good opening in the forest to head north toward our goal for this part of the trip: the elevated roadbed that once led west from the sulphur mine, across Mac Bayou, and out to the Trinity River. Thinking back to when I first began paddling out here, I recalled how, whenever we wanted to paddle up to the Sulphur Cut, we would have to portage our boats up and over that levee that supported the pipes.
As the crow flies, it is only about six-tenths of a mile from Lake Charlotte up to the elevated roadbed, but if the crow has to seek out patches of wider-spaced cypress trees while avoiding areas of denser vegetation, then it might end up going almost twice that far (as we did).
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| Into the Woods |
|
Caterpillars |
|
Clear Ahead |
Partway up, we could hear an unexpectedly loud gurgling sound coming from a spot where water was flowing out of a small channel leading southwest out of Mac Bayou, over into the surrounding forest. Based on the delight this brought to us, we christened it the Fountain of Youth.
 |
|
 |
| Channel from Mac Bayou |
|
Fountain of Youth |
We did a shallow-drag portage into that channel and followed it for a ways, even though we knew that it would carry us away from our intended goal. After a short free ride on the current, we headed a little farther west, and continued our trip to the north for about a half-hour, at which time we sighted high ground ahead. Stepping carefully to avoid any distress for a snake that was guarding its can of adult beverage, Natalie clambered up onto the bank and confirmed that we had indeed reached our goal.
 |
| Hands Off! |
We had managed to get to the roadbed by paddling roughly parallel to Mac Bayou, heading north without having to buck the current. Along the way, we had seen a couple of power boats pass by on Mac Bayou, and at one point, we spied Bruce Bodson and Constantin Platon making their way up Mac Bayou in their kayaks on one leg of their paddling trip.
Taking advantage of what we had learned on the way north, we made a somewhat quicker and shorter trip back down to Lake Charlotte, re-emerging into the lake very close to where we had left it almost three hours earlier. We decided to paddle through the forest about half way down toward Buzzard Roost, where topo maps show a couple of small lakes tucked away, surrounded by forest. Partway there, we passed by an active osprey nest.
|
| Osprey Nest |
Turning in about where we reckoned the small lakes to be, we headed west through the forest. After about 400 feet, we came into a small clearing, but it looked as if it would be tougher going if we tried to continue west, and we reminded ourselves that this was intended to be a “smell the flowers” style outing. In the clearing, we noticed a large patch of parrotfeather milfoil, which we have reported earlier in Turtle Bayou, but that I couldn’t recall having seen before around Lake Charlotte. So, while we were there, we collected data to report the parrotfeather milfoil and giant salvinia that were afloat in the clearing. Two other invasive plants, alligatorweed and common water hyacinth, were also in evidence there.
 |
|
 |
| Parrotfeather Milfoil |
|
Giant Salvinia |
Feeling that we had pretty much met the modest level of exertion that we had planned for the day, we headed back up the west side of Lake Charlotte to the mouth of Mac Bayou, and on across the north end of the lake to Cedar Hill Park. All agreed that this had been an excellent respite from being homebound during the pandemic, and our route-finding would later pay off when we returned to Lake Charlotte on April 16, in search of another rarely-visited spot. For today, the 4.9 mile trip length had been just right.
 |
|
|
|
 |
| Natalie & Ellen |
|
Linda & Tom |
|
Joe & Haiku |
After loading up gear and driving home, I discovered that the pleasures of the day weren’t entirely over yet. It seems that a little brown spider had hung on for dear life, riding all the way back to Houston clinging to my canoe’s tie-down rope. It then hopped off onto the brim of my hat, which I had set down while preparing to unload the boat, to pose for the day’s final photo.
 |
|
 |
| Where We Went |
|
Plucky Spider |
Thanks to Linda, Natalie, Tom, and Joe for taking the photos that appear in this article.
Trip Stats:
Trip length: 4.9 miles
Depth at the Lake Charlotte Gauge: 11.2 feet
Weather, as reported at the Fishers Landing Personal Weather Station in Mont Belvieu, TX:
Temperature at Noon: 77˚
Wind: 0 – 2 mph