So sometimes this is how you get it done. Six a.m. and the house is quiet aside from my keyboard clicking. I can actually think! And no one knows I’m up yet. I have been getting up this early automatically for a little bit now, and I am starting to get used to it. The pre-dawn hours are so much nicer than I thought they could be. The birds are very much alive and the air is still cool. Yeah, I think I dig it.
So last weekend the boyfriend and I decided to do a two day kayak run down our Little Miami river. The plan was leaving Saturday at 11, being on the water by 12, camping Saturday night, waking up at dawn on Sunday, having some breakfast, and paddling on to our Milford destination. Dropping in up at Morrow, it should have been a good 4 or 5 hours each day. Well….. The best intentions, right? The boyfriend got out of work a little later, our 12pm drop in time became 2pm, and the extra weight on the kayaks made still water our enemy. The girl at the Morrow drop in said she believed it was 50 miles to Milford. I believe it was more like 30, so we dropped in regardless and got on our way.
The boyfriend was riding the Coleman Hooligan kayak, which has high walls and can pack in a lot of gear, so his kayak was the main gear kayak. The Hooligan is heavy empty, so with the added 50 pounds or more of tent, food, fire grate for cooking, etc. I was glad I was not paddling that one. I also had gear in my Potomac 100, and pulling in still water had my shoulders burning more quickly than I expected. We have good little kayaks, though, and I know they did their best for us. Especially the Hooligan, we pushed that boat to it’s limits I think, and it did not disappoint.
Upon dropping in we realized quickly the river is a different atmosphere up north from our usual local run on a Sunday afternoon. The first thing I noticed was how much wider the river was. The green was greener, and the banks were clean and clear of garbage and debris. I wonder why the river can be so clean up there, and yet not so much down here. It can be so disappointing to hop in the kayak, or stop to stretch your legs and you’re tripping over everyone else’s trash. If there are any fishermen out there reading this, please pack out your garbage. Your expended or snagged up line, your beer cans, your cigarette butts. That’s all we ask. I ask the same of the party canoers. Anyway, the river was beautiful. A little muddy because we’ve had rains lately, but the trees along the bank were picture perfect with their gnarled roots curling out to grab the water, and their branches leaning out and over as though to pat you on the back or take a sip. The rapids were wide and bubbly, but nothing too heavy, which was a relief considering our weight. I was worried we would bottom out at times because the Little Miami is a fairly shallow river, but I only scraped twice, and it may have been about the same for the boyfriend. There were two memorable moments for me along our first leg. The first was at our first stop, or rather once we put back in after our first stop. We stopped at the entrance to some rapids where a tree branch was hanging straight into the water in the dead center of the drop into the rapid. When we got back in I warned to watch the tree and stay left of it if possible. It was the safe route, yes, but it was the safe route! Lol Anyhow, the boyfriend is the type to act first and think later, you know who you are, and his famous last words were: “No tree has sh** on me!”, and that should have been all I needed to know. He decided to go to the right of the tree and do a little “duck and shimmy” around it. I’m sure it was fun for about 3 seconds until the weight displaced from his little side-duck and over he went! He did great getting the kayak upright (full of water and all our gear, mind you), and he hung on and rode it down. I got sideways in front of him so he would hit me before anything else and I could guide him over to shore. Now, this waterproof duffle we had did an amazing job, but it’s storm proof, not submerge proof, and once we hit land and investigated we realized everything was a bit damp. Not soaked, thank god, but damp can be just as bad when you’re camping. Needless to say, the decision to find camp was pushed up so fire could be built and clothesline made nearby. Everyone was okay, and that was the main concern. It took a good thirty minutes to drain the kayak, repack, and get back on the way.
The second memorable moment came when we came upon an S-curve of rapids that were very cool. We dropped in to the left, had to avoid a whirlpool action to the right and stay in line to continue through the rapids to the right. At the end there was a strong whirlpool action that turned me around, but it was one of the neatest set of rapids I’ve been through along this river. It’s amazing to me, the pull and rush of the river. I have an intense respect and admiration, and if I could spend every weekend on the water, you would find me there. It is the most peaceful place.
Shortly after those rapids we staked out a place to camp, and decided on a spot just north of Kings Island. Upside, we got to watch their closing fireworks from camp. Downside, we heard a lot of traffic through the night. Well, this is a long story, so I’ll post this as part one, and post part two in a bit. Any comments, questions and advice on our experience is always welcome. Next up: camping in the rain that was supposed to come later and the long leg home.
