Our group of six paddlers gathered for a socially distanced outing on the West Fork of Double Bayou, which is over in Chambers County a little southeast of Anahuac. All of us were paddling canoes: two solo boats and two tandem boats. The undisturbed state of the vegetation on the bank near the Sykes Road/FM 2936 bridge bespoke the fact that the upstream portion of the bayou has been paddled rarely, if at all. Even though Ann Andrisek couldn’t join us on the water this time, she bicycled down to the bridge to see us off. We thanked her and waved farewell as we headed upstream.
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Good Teamwork
by Ann Andrisek
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The Put-In
by Linda Shead |
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Headed North
by Ann Andrisek |
The weather was fine, and our timing was just right. You can get an impression of our experience from these two photos by Linda Shead and this video by Richard Cunningham.
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Underway
by Linda Shead |
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Beautiful Morning
by Linda Shead |
The passage of four days had allowed conditions to settle down following the rainy weather and high tides brought on by Tropical Storm Beta, and it would still be yet one more day before a cold front would drop the water level enough to create issues for paddlers. Our departure came right at high tide, which was a big advantage.
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High Tide by USGS
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Both sides of the bayou were forested in many places, although several stretches of the west bank were still healing from the removal of trees that took place several years back. There, portions of the bank had slumped and collapsed into the channel.
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Missing Trees
by Richard Cunningham
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Caving Bank
by Tom Douglas |
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Welcome Committee
by Linda Shead |
Erosion had also caused the west end of the steel bridge at mile 2.4 (see the GPS Track) to drop by several feet. Getting under it required a bit of a limbo maneuver, which John Rich captured in a video.
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GPS Track
by Tom Douglas |
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Steel Bridge
by Tom Douglas |
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Limbo
by John Rich
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At one point, a stand of pine trees had carpeted the ground with golden needles. We negotiated several clumps of giant cutgrass (Zizaniopsis miliacea), with only one paddler experiencing a cut finger from the sharp leaf edges. Overhead, there were belted kingfishers, many golden orb weavers tending their webs, and a large flock of singing red-winged blackbirds.
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The Pines
by Tom Douglas
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David in Cutgrass
by Tyler Horne |
Fallen trees at mile 4.3 created the only mandatory portage on this leg of the trip. The bayou had been narrowing slowly all along, but from here on it seemed to become even more slender. Still, the depth of the channel held at around five feet. After John Rich had scouted ahead for a ways, Linda Shead and Tom Douglas decided to see whether they could make it all of the way up to Highway 562. Amazingly, they reached the bridge at mile 5.0. There, the channel was sufficiently narrow that getting the canoe turned around required lifting one end of it up onto the bank.
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Portage
by Richard Cunningham |
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Slender Channel
by Linda Shead |
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Highway 562
by Tom Douglas
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Heading back downstream, we could see that the tide was ebbing. The limbo required to get under the upper branch of the fallen tree at mile 3.3 was easier than before, but its submerged branches were now close enough to the surface to make for a tricky passage. Once again, John Rich was on hand to capture the episode on video. It had become a little easier to pass under the steel bridge, but a small fallen tree at mile 2.2 that we had nudged our way through in the morning now required a short portage. While Tyler Horne was waiting there for some of us laggards to catch up with the rest of the group, he launched a drone to catch several aerial shots of the bayou.
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Tricky Spot
by John Rich
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Aerial View
by Tyler Horne |
I don’t think that anyone was really looking forward to the scramble up the bank at the take-out, but the group worked together very effectively to get boats back up to the road and onto cars for the trip home. By this time we were all a bit muddy, but happy with the day’s 9.9-mile paddle.
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Muddy but Happy
by Tom Douglas
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