Last week a couple of grade school friends called me up with a crazy idea. They wanted to "float" the creek from Silver Creek Falls State Park to my house. While I was skeptical of our chances, I agreed to try.
We set out at 9:30 A.M. from the parking lot at the park. It was a couple miles walk down to the creek below the falls, but it was all downhill. When we reached the creek, it was only about six inches deep - no floating yet...
After a mile or so the North fork of the creek joined the South, and we were finally able to float a bit. The next 5 miles or so was a really good time - endless pools, rapids, and small waterfalls. That was followed by a mile of channels, where the whole creek was forced into a three-foot-wide slot in the bedrock.
After that things took a turn for the worse. The last two miles was very tough. The banks were so overgrown that we had to walk in the creek, which was wide and shallow. Rock-hopping and picking your way through ankle-deep water over slick round rocks gets exhausting fast...
About nine hours later we reached the gravel road that leads up out of the canyon to my house. Two very steep miles later we walked into my yard. All told we had walked 14 miles, over half a Marathon! Ten miles of it was through the creek, which made it all the harder. It took us ten hours total, but we did stop to jump off some falls, swim, have lunch, et cetera.
I took a bunch of pictures, I'll post them a few at a time (Dang slow dial-up!)
We set out at 9:30 A.M. from the parking lot at the park. It was a couple miles walk down to the creek below the falls, but it was all downhill. When we reached the creek, it was only about six inches deep - no floating yet...
After a mile or so the North fork of the creek joined the South, and we were finally able to float a bit. The next 5 miles or so was a really good time - endless pools, rapids, and small waterfalls. That was followed by a mile of channels, where the whole creek was forced into a three-foot-wide slot in the bedrock.
After that things took a turn for the worse. The last two miles was very tough. The banks were so overgrown that we had to walk in the creek, which was wide and shallow. Rock-hopping and picking your way through ankle-deep water over slick round rocks gets exhausting fast...
About nine hours later we reached the gravel road that leads up out of the canyon to my house. Two very steep miles later we walked into my yard. All told we had walked 14 miles, over half a Marathon! Ten miles of it was through the creek, which made it all the harder. It took us ten hours total, but we did stop to jump off some falls, swim, have lunch, et cetera.
I took a bunch of pictures, I'll post them a few at a time (Dang slow dial-up!)
