Alcovy River
Today Doug M. and I took a day trip to the Alcovy river. We left early in the afternoon and drove out I20 east to Covington. Exit on Alcovy rd. following the tourist information signs to town square and a. 36. South on Ga. 36 to Henderson Mill Rd. and parked my truck just across the Alcovy river bridge. The put in point was back up in Covington just across the river bridge on us 278.
Due to heavy rains two days prior, the river was past flood stage. The first stage of this journey should meander through flat swamp land with several oxbows. Because the water was so high, the current was very strong and the wood land river was very difficult to follow. It was easy to get lost in the oxbows and sometimes the channel would be lost to us altogether.
At first our canoe skills as a team were less than perfect. We hit many obstacles which could have been avoided. Once we figured out how to work as a team to maneuver Doug's 17' canoe we did much better.
The river starte(d) out treacherously. Dead fall after dead fall were crashed through and run over. In the high water these dead falls became not only difficult, but also very dangerous. Trees of all shapes and sizes blocked our path sometime creating very difficult zig-zag turns and sometime(s) blocking the entire river. For six and a half miles we fought through this hellish blockade. After passing the CR 213 bridge, the river opened out and became a bit easier. The dead falls no longer reached across the entire span of the river. We made much better time and could relax just a little.
When we got close to our take out the roar of white water came to us through the trees. Coming round what was to be the last bend the churning waters became visible. We put to shore on the only sandy beach we had seen on the right side of the river. We scouted the shoals and discovered that we actually were within 100 yards of our destination and all of it over very disturbed shoals. After scouting we decided to run to the left of a large fallen tree and hug the left bank taking the waves as best as we could. The canoe took this water very well and the white water was actually the easiest part of the journey. We pulled the canoe out and headed for home.
We learned a lot today about ourselves and each other. I believe we both learned the (that) we are better paddlers than we thought we were. We also learned NOT TO EVER PADDLE A FLOODED ALCOVY RIVER!!!
My dad drew out the last 100 yard stretch of his trip:
No comments:
Post a Comment