Upper James River

We are heading to the Upper James River tomorrow to give it a go.  This is a section that I have not floated previously and it normally is not floatable this time of year.  I have been told that the water is perfect and the fishing fantastic so it sounds like a great plan to me.  We are going to be putting in well above Hwy 125.  (Please note that access is restricted at the 125 bridge now.  Respect property owners!)  

So far this year has been pretty slow.  Early in the year we hardly got any water at all.  (I will post some pictures from a Whitewater Competition to prove it).  Now it is early summer and the rain has kept coming.  While so far my work schedule never seems to coincide with the river's schedule I must power through and get on the water ASAP.   We should have a good full day float n fish ahead of us.  Of course, there will be much more to come afterwards.  

Winter Float

After an excessively long hiatus I was finally able to return to the river during our winter break!  We decided to keep it close to home and relatively short, as we were honestly ill equipped clothing-wise.

We had received quite a bit of snow and a fair amount of rain the days leading up to our float.  As this was the case we envisioned higher water levels than we were greeted with.  The water was still moving at a good clip over the dam and this of course had me fired up to go over it.  It seems risky during the day with all of the people fishing but sometime, we vowed to each other, we would return and go over it.  It is a short dam at only about 15 - 20' but neither of us have gone over anything larger at this point.

As is the norm for this area the water where we began our journey was muddy and debris-filled.  This never let up and I attribute it mostly to the precipitation.  The amount of litter that was seen was also disturbing though.  This stretch is right off of Springfield Lake but it was disheartening to see all of the trash in branches and on the banks.

This stretch had some beautiful scenery along the way.  We saw two caves.  One of them could be paddled into.  A lighter person with a smaller kayak may be able to paddle further back than the 15-20 yards that I was able to manage but it was fun nonetheless.  There was a decent sized cave on land a little further downstream as well.  There were tags all over it.  It is very aggravating to see this type of destruction occurring.  It reminds me of our hikes in Lost Valley, AR.  The trees and paths are beautiful minus the hundreds and hundreds of carvings all over the old sycamores.  Despite this wild graffiti the cave offered a few surprises.

It is not uncommon to see bald eagles around this area during the winter but I still get very excited every time I do spot one.  We had an immature bald eagle soaring just below the tree tops along the river above us for several minutes.  I was able to capture it on video but due to the distortion caused by the camera lens it looks farther away than it was.  We were able to float slowly and quietly to within about 30 yards of the giant.  It was quite exciting!

All in all the float was  a lot of fun and a huge success.  It definitely has both of us fired up for what will hopefully turn out to be another fantastic year for kayaking! 

“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.” 
― David Brower