My 18 year old son was visiting this weekend and since he wants to do an adventure race with Lisa and me in November I felt we needed a little training. First up, some kayaking. Every year the Arkansas Canoe Club has a “Government Day” in which they invite legislators and state employees from various state and national government agencies to a float down the Ouachita River from Remmel Dam to the Rockport Ledge near Malvern. Just a 4 mile float and with a release from the dam no real paddling. This was the second year in a row that I have gone on it and Lisa and the young one decided to stay home and do girl stuff for a change. So David and I headed out with the tandem kayak.
The float is very slow with a lot of rafts. We tend to paddle back and forth going back up stream to get more of a workout and just kind of buzzing the rafts and then just floating, allowing the current to carry us. About half way doen the folat we all stop at a canoe club members house on the river and enjoy a bbq lunch complete with brownies and excellent lemonade. Then it’s back in the water for the last two miles to the ledge. Again, nice floating, looking at the homes along the river and sticking our hands in the coooooold water. A nice little float. Then we came to the ledge. I’ve done the ledge in a canoe before and the youngest did it in her kayak last year so we’re thinking, no problem. David is about the same size as me and we are riding a little low in that tandem kayak but I didn’t really think much about it. We drop over the ledge and the bow goes submarine on us. As it begins looking for the depths of the river the boat starts to fill with water, cold water. The aft comes off the ledge and we level off but we are full and slowly sinking. we struggle to keep a course and she slowly rolls. Did I mention how cold the water was? We float on down hold the kayak and guiding it toward the shore. Finnally we have a good story other than just floating. Out of the water soaking wet, we watch the others come over without incident and enjoy watching the playboats and rafts having fun on the ledge.
Well that was Saturday. The plan for Sunday was some mountain bike riding at Burns Park along with some orienteering on a course that was set up last fall. We needed the practice for various upcoming adventure races. Alas, rain. Being adventure racers and basically insane, the rain would not stop us but it was enough rain that we didn’t want to tear up the trails at Burns Park. So we opted for the orienteering. Yes, running around in the woods, in the rain, in the middle of summer. Good idea! I figured a way we could do a series in a big loop that would take us back to the truck.
So we did a little trail running and got to our starting point. Looking at the map we had a choice of walking up the trail and guesstimating the spot to turn into the woods to find the checkpoint or actually orienteering straight through the woods. We chose what we thought would be the easy way and came up with nothing so back to the covered bridge to start again, this time doing it right. We hiked through the woods and came righ to it. At this point I’d like to mention that none of them would have been found if it hadn’t been for Lisa. You see both my son and I are terribly color blind and even though I’ve been assured that these are bright orange, they just kind of melt into the foliage to David and me. From there we kept going and found the second one (photo) and then went for the third. Darn! looked all over where it “should” have been but came up empty handed. The fourth one was found with some searching. It had fallen on the ground but was there (I actually found this one). The next one was tough and took us down in the hollow and up over another ridge and then dropped down again. We came up about 20 yards to one side of it but Lisa’s eagle eye saw it. Then back out of the woods and up to the truck to go get something to eat. We must have looked a mess walking into Taco Bell.
After lunch we headed back to get another set of checkpoints. These proved to be a lot tougher even thought they were closer together. We never found the first one we were after. The second one was found but was not exactly where we had plotted it, thanks again to Lisa Eagle Eye. The next one was tough but we found it with some good orienteering. It was on the ground also. The next one should have been pretty straight forward and I know we were in the right spot. It was suppose to be hanging above a dry creek bed but I think that if it fell before the Spring rains it got washed away. So back to the road and a short run back to the truck. Tired, wet and ready to get cleaned up.
Just another Arkansas Weekend.
P.S. Just realized I forgot to put a link to the orienteering site so here you go: Ozark Extreme NavCourse
3 Responses
Geeze! (and BRRRR!) You guys need to get out more… have some fun… maybe go to a movie or sumthin…
Hey Joe, are you talking about the CP that Brandon set up? I went out there several weeks ago and didn’t find any. But I think we were looking for a different set. Het has two maybe even three loops set up. I was wondering if the others were still out there.
He has two set up from what his Web site shows. We found all but one (13) on the Western Course and we couldn’t find three (41, 20, 21)on the Eastern Course. So out of 10 we found 6. Number 15 and number 35 where on the ground. (35 had teeth marks) We stuck them on branches in the trees above where we found them. Number 21 we plotted in a dry creek bed but if it fell before the spring than it would have been washed away. The other missing ones are relatively close to “populated areas” so may have been forcibly removed. The map is here: http://www.ozarkextreme.com/Burns_Park_Nav_07a.jpg