Getting hooked on the river

Harold Banks

Originally published 11:30 p.m., June 3, 2009
Updated 11:30 p.m., June 3, 2009

Editor’s Note: This the second in a series of Dadeville resident Harold Banks’ travel journal made during his 258-mile descent of the Tallapoosa River. The series will continue in the next edition of The Outlook.

April 17, Day Two

Hi 72, Low 44, partly cloudy

five miles NW of Buchanan, Ga.

I only got sporadic sleep last night. I kept thinking it should be light soon and checked my watch about every 30 minutes. I got up at 6 a.m., fired up my collapsible wood burning stove, and cooked my standard breakfast fare of coffee and two packages of instant oatmeal with a pack of Carnation Instant Breakfast mixed in. I don’t try to get fancy for breakfast when traveling, just quick nutrition. Heavy dew is on the tent and the interior walls are wet with condensation, but I can’t wait for it to dry.

It still takes me too long from the time I get up to the time I get back on the water. I’ll have to work on that.

I finally get off and make it a full 200 yards before my first log jam. I’m having a bad feeling about the upper part of this river. But I know it does clear up eventually so I will just persevere. After a few miles, the character of the river changes. There are steep rocky hillsides, boulders in the creek, rhododendron hells, blooming wild azalea, pretty shoals and occasional light rapids. It’s Deliverance country and I’m loving it. The faster flow here prevents log jams. But the good times don’t last very long before the valley widens and I have the dreaded obstacles again. They aren’t as numerous as yesterday, though.

I hear a loud ruckus ahead and when I round a bend I come upon a Great Blue Heron rookery. I count 27 nests high in one huge sycamore tree. Although there are other big trees right beside it, for some reason they all want that one. A single blue heron can make a very loud squawk and 50 of them protesting an intruder near their nursery is a choir fit for the devil. I don’t see another beaver all day, but do pass several nice dams on feeder creeks.

I think the river is finally getting too big for them to try to take on, but some of the dams on the small creeks entering the river must be six feet high. I see big river cooters sliding in the water ahead of me. They can spot me from far away even when I’m moving silently. Map turtles aren’t as shy and let me get close. I see two hornets’ nests hanging over the river today.

The log jams are much less frequent now, but I have a couple of doozies. One I cannot get over or through by any means and have to work my way upstream about 50 yards to find a place to unload my boat and then haul canoe and gear around.

Another jam is a single big poplar tree all the way across, but barely touching the fast flowing water. These single logs are normally pretty easy to pull over, but this one is dangerous because the flow is so strong going under it that it really sucks on my canoe when I get broadside.

I almost let the canoe get swamped which would have been bad. Snags like this can be killers and many people have drowned because they got tangled in underwater limbs in strong flow like this.

A couple of miles downstream I hit another river hazard. I brushed a tree limb and thought a briar vine caught my arm. I look down and there’s a plastic minnow staring at me, its hook firmly embedded in my right forearm.

I use a variation of the so-called “painless” method to remove it. I tie a cord to the curved part of the hook and secure the other end to an attachment point beside my seat. I then press the shank down to the skin with my left hand and yank my right arm so the hook is pulled straight back. It comes out cleanly, but I wouldn’t say it didn’t hurt. Nothing in my first aid kit will clean a puncture wound and I count the years since my last tetanus shot.

I cross U.S. Highway 27 at about mile 20.5, and I could almost recommend running the river for fun from this point. I’m doing nothing but trying to get down river and not taking time for fishing, picture taking, or my favorite pastime – loitering. I finally call it quits at 5:45 pm and pitch camp. It is not as good a site as last night, but it will have to do. I made 19 miles today which I am proud of considering what it took to do it. It is still shy of the 25 miles per day I hoped to average, but maybe it will get better.

I’m wondering why I feel compelled to push so hard. So what if it takes another couple of days? I’ve taken many canoe trips before, alone and with others. When paddling strictly for pleasure, I try to limit the day to no more than 14 miles so there is time for photography, fishing, camping early, and loafing. But this trip for me is not about fun or pleasure though I hope to experience some of both.

It is a personal quest to accomplish what has not been done before and to test the limits of my physical ability and resourcefulness. That is why it was necessary to do this trip solo. Good thing too, because there would have definitely been a mutiny by now if I had a partner on these first two days of Hell. If I complete this journey no one can take away the first descent claim, but if anybody should attempt the same trip, I also want them to have to work very hard to beat my time doing it.

I call Amy. She says the temperature will get into the 30’s tonight with chances of rain tomorrow. Oh boy! After supper, I nurse a small fire for companionship and watch a low fog develop over the water. Absolutely gorgeous.

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