Trip at a Glance
4/10/2021 – SATURDAY
Ken McCormick, Christy Long, Amy McGee, Duane Hecklesberg, “KP” Pape and Kent Walters met ahead of schedule at the Ozark Café in Jasper, Arkansas for our planning meeting and dinner. Constantine joined us at the campsite just about dusk. NOTE: No part of the plan survived the encounter with reality. The rain before the trip had not happened, so we decided to start our trip from our campsite at Kyle’s Landing with empty boats. With that decided, we drove to Kyle’s Landing, set up camp and enjoyed socializing around a great campfire.
Group Meeting
4/11/2021 – SUNDAY
Ready to go
Sunday opened kind of chilly. We had breakfast and ran a quick shuttle. We got on the river just before 11:00 and paddled the 13.2 miles to Pruitt. It was beautiful, with the redbuds and dogwoods in full bloom against the bright greens of the spring foliage, and an osprey as a bonus. The water level was sufficient for us to paddle without having to get out of our boats through our careful reading of the river. At the Pruitt takeout we saw bees swarming on a tree. We returned to the Ozark Café for dinner on the back end of the shuttle, and then went back to camp and had another great campfire experience.
4/12/2021 – MONDAY
Paddling down to Pruitt
This was the big work day – we all drove to our put-in at Pruitt where we took out the day before. You would not want to miss one inch of this scenery and interesting water. We prepared our boats, and the two drivers left on the long shuttle – almost 2 hours each way. Many thanks to Duane and Constantine for volunteering and making the successful conclusion of our progressive camping adventure possible. They returned and we finally got in the water just before 2:00 in the afternoon. This was a little late for comfortably achieving our goal of Carver 11 miles downstream, and we paddled a little more aggressively on this segment to make sure we could set up our camp in the light. Even so, we saw a little bat flying around, and confirmed it was a bat when it landed on a cliff face and started inching its way down, taking off just before I could get my camera ready. We saw and photographed a bald eagle and a little snake, and saw a pair of grebes. Constantine offered a paddling tip to help all of us engage our cores. We paddled about a half-mile past Carver to get away from the road noise, and commandeered a delightful campsite, where we set up camp and build another big fire. We saw lots of fireflies flashing on all sides of us. We decided to call it a night when rain from a thunderstorm started falling on us.
Bald Eagle
4/13/2021 – TUESDAY
The thunderstorm dropped a lot of water for an hour or so a couple of times during the night, but did not change the level of the river. We started paddling around 9:30 with a target of Woolum, and saw several bald eagles, a great blue heron and grebes. Constantine scouted a section of standing waves and quickly set up on the shore to take photos of each of us as we came through the maelstrom. He caught each of us buried in water and bursting out of waves – a very cool memento of our expedition together.
Thru the Rapids by Constantin Platon
Ken
Amy
Christy
Duane
Kent
We stopped short of Woolum at a gravel bar across from the Skull (a rock formation with two short caves resembling the eye sockets of a human skull). This left a little more distance for our last day (about 17 miles), but it was a really nice campsite, and far from any noisy civilization. We set up camp, and while we were cooking and eating, Christy stole Amy’s dinner and threw it in the trash. It took a while for Amy to sleuth out what had happened. After that, we had a really nice campfire, complete with more fireflies. The rain started at about 11:15 and ended around 4:00AM.
Skull, by Constantin Platon
Campfire, by Ken McCormick
4/14/2021 – WEDNESDAY
River Came UP, by Constantin Platon
Constantine near Folded Rock
Folded Rock, by Constantin Platon
This precipitation did make a difference to the water level of the river, bringing it within two feet of my tent. The water was moving with enthusiasm! We got on the river about 9:45, and saw eagles, grebes, a great blue heron, hawks and vultures. We had lunch at Buzzards Roost, a local landmark. Great scenery the whole way on this wide river. We completed our 17-mile run at Tyler Bend at 2:45. We loaded up Constantine’s trailer and piled into his van and took this party to the Ozark Café for another great dinner before setting up camp again at Kyle’s Landing.
Raft at Tyler Bend, by Constantin Platon
4/15/2021 – THURSDAY
We had left all of the kayaks on the trailer from the previous day’s shuttle, and drove them and ourselves to Ponca to enjoy nature’s bounty of water. The gage was at 4’ – the level for a normal run. We put in and enjoyed the high bluffs and the rougher water. We took the time to visit Hemmed In Hollow, a 250’ waterfall only a half-mile hike from the river. The wave train just above Kyle’s Landing was not nearly as thrilling as in flood stage, but it was sufficient to thoroughly soak us just before our exit. We got the boats out and went to have a delicious dinner at the Low Gap Café. Constantine left us to get started on the next leg of his travels. On our return, we had another great campfire.
Bluff near Ponca
Christy and Amy under Hemmed-in-Hollow Falls
Group Photo at Hemmed-in-Hollow Falls, by Constantin Platon
4/16/2021 – FRIDAY
Morning Campfire at Kyle’s Landing
Most of us (Ken, Kent, Duane, Amy and Christy) went to breakfast at (you guessed it) the Ozark Café with a plan to continue through western Arkansas to scout the Mulberry and the Cossatot Rivers from the shore on the way home. The Mulberry looked interesting – kind of a bigger Buffalo River with too much proximity to civilization for my taste, but a fun looking place. Duane left us for home at this point.
Amy and Duane at the Redding Putin on the Mulberry River
We arrived in the Cossatot area too late to survey the river, so Amy and Christy stayed in a nice hotel in Mena, and Ken and I found a really great campsite next to “The Falls” on the river. Amy and Christy met us at our campsite the next morning, and we went up and down to various parts of the river, ending at the gigantic and sumptuous Visitor’s Center at the end of the big popular segment of the river.
Entry to Cossatot Falls on the Cossatot River
Looking Upstream from Cossatot Fallls-Ken in Contemplation
Nice Campsites on the Cossatot River
Edge Falls Rapid on the Cossatot River
While this report is fairly accurate as far as it goes, I hope all who read it realize that it only captures a small part of the experience. There were the animals crossing the roads at night – deer, armadillos, and possum – the sounds in the morning of the whippoorwill, woodpecker, wild turkeys and cardinal. Most of it is in the interactions within the group while taking in the great beauty, fresh air, moving water, weather and grand scale of the environment.
Where we went
