NEW CREEKS FOR CONFIDENT CLASS II PADDLERS

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

This season's crop of potential new places to paddle for the Class II-II+ paddler is looking good. With just a couple of creeks left to check out, several already look worthy of full exploration. So far, only road access to a put-in and take-out has been verified, with very short walks down the beginning of each creek. Hiking will follow; full information will be posted after that on class2arkansas.com. My intent is to paddle these at low flow levels, when there is enough water to make it through without having to deal with strong currents. Last spring the new creeks included Bear, Brush, and the upper mile of Little. Full info on those creeks can be found at class2arkansas.com. Any Class II or better paddlers are welcome to join in on these outings. Most of the creeks have small drainage areas and drop to a level that is too low to paddle in a day or two, so postings about paddling them don't get made very long in advance.

The creek below gave the impression of being fairly gentle:


Mild Entertainment 1 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


Mild Entertainment 2 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


The creek below looked to be the mildest of the four, with no ledges:


Frothy Gentle by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


The creek in the five pictures below is the steepest and appeared to be a straight shot through everything; the last two pictures are from a rapid just beyond the take-out which can be run if desired:


Jewel 1 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


Jewel 2 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


Jewel 3 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


Optional Rapid 1 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


Optional Rapid 2 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


The next two pictures are from a creek that looked like it would require much maneuvering down a series of steps sprinkled with boulders, my favorite kind of creek:


High Potential 1 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


High Potential 2 by CaptainAleve, alias Mike Coogan, on Flickr


I hope this generates some interest in joining in on the fun to be had on these small Arkansas creeks.


Mike Coogan, alias Captain Aleve

[rchasei]

Great report, Mike. Looks like fun times to me!

[magicmike]

Looks like rocking good times. If you post up that it's going, and I can get there, I'd love to get in on the fun!-M-