Distance: 15.93 miles
River Conditions: 8.23 feet, or roughly 25th percentile on the Bryan Gauge at SH 21. Discharge 738 cfs, or about the 20th percentile.
Photo Album: Brazos RIver, SH 21 to FM 60, with the Stewards of the Wild
Attendees: For Lower Brazos Riverwatch; Bruce Bodson, David Portz, Sara Hook, Eric Boatman, Willy and Joanna Parsons, Michelle Waterman, Doug Fairchild. For the Stewards of the Wild BCS Chapter, a group of roughly 12 that included the following (sorry I did not get all the names!); Mary Beth Friebele, Matt Stellbauer, John Ellisor, Haley Kokel, Callie Wynn, Nikki Thornton, David Noellsch, Torie Noellsch, and about four more.
This trip was a cooperative venture between Lower Brazos Riverwatch and the Stewards of the Wild Bryan-College Station chapter. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this organization, this is the young professional's group (21 to 45) affiliated with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation. The TPWF is the NGO friends group that works with TPWD to further that organization’s mission of natural resource conservation and encouraging outdoor recreation in Texas.
The Brazos is one of the most interesting areas of quasi-wilderness in the BCS area. None of the Stewards had been on the river prior to this outing, so LBRW really enjoyed the opportunity to introduce them to the river.
Our plan was to meet at the SH 21 Bridge at 0830, after setting the shuttle vehicles for the post trip reunifying of vehicles, boats and owners. Despite a relatively large group, and a correspondingly complex shuttle we were very close to hitting that goal. Once we had all of the boats and paddlers at SH 21 we proceeded to launch.
The SH 21 put in is a bit of a challenge under any circumstances, and it is even more complicated when launching nearly 20 boats, not all manned by real experienced paddlers. The path to the river is very steep, slippery, and terminates in a bit of a mud hole, under the best of circumstances. Things went very well. We managed to get the entire group into their boats with no major upsets or swamping of boats, though there were a few of us who slid down the slope and into the river for a moment. There was a nice sandbar immediately upstream, near the Whiskey Bridge, that gave everyone a chance to stage themselves until all the boats were ready to go.
Once on the river we had plans to stop at mile 2.70, mile 7.00 and mile 12.00, before getting to the finish. The mile 2.70 stop was partly an opportunity to adjust anything on the boats that did not seem quite right, and partly an opportunity to walk around and look at the various things on the sandbar. This bar is typically covered with small marine fossils, various concretions that have eroded out of the banks upstream, and the various species of freshwater mussels native to the river. Among the various mussel species we found at this bar were Tampico pearly mussels, yellow sandshell, Brazos heelsplitter, fragile papershell, pimpleback, three ridge, and a rather large number of Texas fawnsfoot mussels (about a dozen sets of valves, all still connected) that appeared to be newly dead and eaten, probably by raccoons.
Our next stop was at the 7.0-mile island, at the head of Rocky Shoals (note that there are at least three locations on the Brazos below Waco called Rocky Shoals). This area is located where the river cuts into the Yegua formation and exposes large numbers of stromatolite fossils and Eocene age petrified wood. The Island itself, which is a regular stop for LBRW on this river segment, contains many large sections of petrified logs that we use as seats for a lunch break. The water through this area is faster, and there are numerous limestone sills and boulder scatters. It is not particularly difficult navigation, but it does require a bit of attention to avoid grounding on a rock.
Below the 7.0-mile island several of our crew were beginning to feel the heat and the effort. The group began to spread out a bit, but everyone kept going under their own power. By the 12 mile bar (actually 12.25 miles) people were ready to push through to the take out. It was just another 3.75 miles to FM 60.
FM 60 did present its own challenges. This take out is entirely unimproved and is a bit of a jumble of concrete debris, much of it still coated with slippery mud from higher water earlier in the week. It took a good group effort to get all the boats up the slope and get the shuttles run again, but we did end up with all the boats on the correct cars and ready to go.
In addition to the aquatic critters and fossils, this stretch was decent for birds. The following were observed during our trip:
Spotted sandpiper, killdeer, green heron, great blue heron, great egret, snowy egret, cattle egret, yellow-crowned night heron, cormorant sp., belted kingfisher, red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk, Mississippi Kite, crested caracara, black vulture, turkey vulture, bald eagle (2), white-eyed vireo, great crested flycatcher, eastern kingbird, scissor-tailed flycatcher, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, northern mockingbird, barn swallow, cliff swallow, northern rough-winged swallow, northern parula, American crow, blue jay, eastern bluebird, northern cardinal, indigo bunting, and painted bunting. I’m sure there are a few others that fluttered past and I am simply not remembering them.
This stretch of the river also has a considerable amount of oil field debris and potentially hazardous environmental circumstances. At roughly 11 miles there is an area where what appears to be polyethylene brine transfer pipe is exposed and floating on the river for a distance of nearly half a mile before it returns to the high bank. Given the dynamics of the river, this seems to be a risky situation where a pipe break could result in the release of brine to the river.
Overall, this segment of the Brazos has real potential as a recreational river. The distance is reasonable, there is a lot of interesting scenery, and there is very little visible civilization. It was a pleasure to introduce the Stewards to their local river. They were a great group, and we would certainly welcome them back to explore other river segments in their chapter area. Perhaps with their help we can get a bit of positive attention on the Brazos as a recreational resource!
