Morris Island - Paddling.

Morris Island is a long barrier Island right at the mouth of Charleston Harbor only accessible by boat. Our plan was to start at the public landing on the Folly River and paddle north around the back side of Folly Island to Lighthouse creek and to the south end of Morris Island near the lighthouse. This was also everyone's first attempt at coastal kayaking. Partpicipants include: Myself, My brother Chris, Ian Randolph, Adam Smith, and Nick Pieroni. I paddled my Dagger Green Boat. The other boats ranged in lengths of 12 to 14 feet.

We set off at from the landing at 9:00 right at high tide and had a moderate wind in our face. We could see the lighthouse standing in the distance pretty much the entire trip over the marsh. We We passed through the Marsh gradually seeing Dolphins as we paddled closer and closer to the lighthouse. Myself and Ian cut off to the right at one point through what I thought was a shortcut. The path ran in to a dead end and we turned around and raced back to catch up with the others. We caught up with them about a 500 yards from lighthouse creek. Adam and Nick went down another small creek which came out at the back side of the beach. The rest of us paddled to lighthouse creek and down to the beach at Morris Island. We reached the Island at 11:00.

Myself and my brother then walked from the south end of the Island to the northern end where the Civil war era "Fort Wagner" once stood. We could also see the flags at Fort Sumter in the distance, and the new Cooper River bridge. Looking across Charleston Harbor you could see the Sullivans Island Lighthouse as well. After walking 2 miles back to the south end of the island, I paddled my kayak through the 3 to 4 swells out past the Morris Island Light house for some close-up shots. I had a great time surfing my long whitewater kayak in the waves.

At 2:00, we loaded up and started to head back, so we crossed the inlet over to Folly Beach with the plan to paddle back up the beach to the pier. As we rounded the point the boats without skirts started to take on too much water too fast due to the waves, and I paddled about 200 yards off the shore and saw that up the beach the waves appeared to be even bigger. I later found out the section of beach that I was looking at is nicknamed "The Washout" and is known for having the biggest surfing waves on Folly Beach. Due to those conditions we decided to turn around head back the way we came through the marsh.

As we were going back in, the tide had just turned and was starting to come back in. We saw about 6 dolphins as we were entering the marsh. After paddling for about a hour, we realised that we had taken a wrong turn and we ended up farther inland that we had wanted to go and ended up in a 4 foot wide 1 foot deep section of Marsh in between the main channels at low tide. We were able to scrape through and get to the main channel of Folly Creek. After we got back here we paddled up to the bridge. About 1.5 miles from where we started by road, but nearly 3.5 miles by water. So we took out here after having traveled a estimated 9 miles. A special thanks goes out to Coastal Expeditions on Folly Creek for allowing us to take out there after we ended up on the wrong creek. And also one of their employees who I do not remember his name but gave me a ride down to the Folly River landing so I could get my truck. Next time I will defiantly watch my map/gps a little bit more and hopefully not get lost next time. Even with the mishap, a good time was had by all. I would defiantly recommend this scenic coastal stretch.

Pictures can be found here


Steve.

Lake Murray - Overnight, May 19th and May 20th.

Lake Murray - 05/19/2010 - 05/20/2010

For those of you who do not know, Lake Murray was created in 1930 by the damming of the Saluda river 10 miles upstream of Columbia, South Carolina. It covers about 50,000 acres in size and measured 34 miles on my planned route. My plan was to put in on the Saluda River above the lake at highway 121 and paddle to the dam over the course of 2 days. I took a few vacation days and planned this trip during the week to try and avoid all the motorboat traffic. One day before my planned launch I checked the weather and had sunny weather and under 10 mph winds projected so I green-lighted the trip. I loaded up my 14.7' Old Towne Canoe and headed up to the Highway 121 landing. The lake level was about 358.5 feet above sea level which is a very high level.

I got in to the water at around 7:40 AM. There was a little less current than I expected. The river was flat and calm. After about 2 miles, I passed the Saluda River Resort. I'm not really sure what type of "resort" it is, but from the river it looked more like a bait shop. Almost immediately after the resort the little bit of current I did have disappeared and I had hit flatwater. You could see where the lake had begun to flood into the trees.

After about 4 or 5 miles you could begin to see areas of open water through. Although the lake kept a well-defined main channel for a few more miles. Once the lake begin to open up I started to pick up a 5 to 10 mph wind at my back. I hit the highway 395 bridge at the 6.5 marker. The boat landing there seemed a really good boat landing there. The stretch from 121 to 395 would be a great Beginner/intermediate group trip. I don't see that stretch getting really rough unless the winds got up very high. I continued on to the 391 bridge, the lake started to open up a lot more but with the wind at my back I traveled much faster than I thought. The 391 bridge is at around mile #12. I had planned to reach this point by 12:30. However, I reached at right at 11:00. I took about 30 minute break and went for a swim. The water felt great as the temperature was starting to get into the low 80's.

I started paddling again after a good lunch. At mile 13, the Little Saluda arm of Lake Murray comes together with the Saluda Arm of the lake and it was pretty neat to think about that deep under the lake is the now flooded confluence between those two rivers. I continued paddling with the wind at my back and near glass-like lake. I continued to paddle at a much faster rate than I had planned to. At mile 18, I rounded a point in the river and I could see Dreher Island in the distance, although it was still about 3 miles away. The wind seemed to pick up even more as the lake was starting to really open up. There is a small island about 400 yards to the west of Dreher Island that was my goal for day one. I reached this Island at 2:00. A full 3 hours ahead of schedule. The gps read 21 miles. With how fast I was traveling and with the wind at my back, I considered not camping and going for the dam all in day 1. I decided against it, I was not real big on dealing with all the boat traffic, I would have had to deal with if I hit the dam area around 6-7 pm like I was projecting.

So I set up camp and goofed off on this little Island I had claimed. On the South side of the Island there was a nice camp spot already set up. This spot already had a fire spot, a table build on to a tree and a view of the water on 3 sides of the island. I made a fire and roasted marshmellows and had a great relaxing night. At least until the "invasion" started. I went to sleep about 10:00 after a long day of paddling it felt good.

At about 1 in the morning I was waken by noises outside my tent. I could hear something kicking around cans in my canoe which was tied to a tree about 20 feet away. I turned on my flashlight and could see 2 eyes shinning back. I made a lot of noise and could see approximately 3 to 4 Raccoons running through my campsite and back into the woods. I then went back to sleep and had a good nights sleep considering.

When I woke up, I discovered that I had left a whole box of fruit rollups on the table and the raccoons had discovered them and seemed to enjoy them a lot. I had to clean up the packages they left all over my camp site where they had tore the box up and ate every single one of them. So if there are any coon hunters out there, I'm telling you just put a fruit rollup in your trap and they will go for it.

After cleaning up the camp site, I started day 2 of paddling. I was kicking myself for not paddling the entire trip on day 1. On day 1, I had a 5 to 10 mph wind at my back all day long. On the morning of day 2, I had a 15 mph wind in my face and a choppy lake to deal with. My original plan was to paddle out and explore bomb island a little bit. With the conditions as they were, I decided not to cross over to the south side of the lake and stick to the northside of the lake for my entire route on day 2. I could see the tall tower at the power plant on the river side of the dam as I rounded Dreher Island. One interesting sight was when looking up one of the coves, I could see Little mountain. It is a isolated "mountain" that reaches over 800 feet above sea level, that I would estimate to be 5 to 6 miles from the lake. I averaged between 1.5 mph and 2 mph from Dreher Island and Counts Island with the strong wind in my face. A distance of about 5 miles. Much slower than the 4 to 5 mph I was traveling on day 1. You could clearly make out the 5 towers at the dam from counts Island and passed bomb Island in the distance.

The journey from Counts Island to Goat Island was the section that worried me most about this trip. This section called for me to travel across 3.5 miles of open water. With how bad the conditions were that morning I was a little worried about this section. But by the time I reached Counts, the wind had noticeably died down to around 5 mph. In the middle of this open water, my speed begin to pick back up to the 3.5 mph to 4 mph range. I reached Goat Island at around 1:15. By this time the wind had completely died out and the lake was like glass. And there were no major areas of open water to cross and cars could clearly be seen crossing the dam. The ending was in sight. My GPS was reading 29 miles total with a little over 3 miles remaining. I had traveled in a more straighter line than I had planned, and also cutting out the trip to bomb Island had changed the total distance some.

Dam and Towers Visible

The trip from Goat Island to the Dam was probably the easiest of the entire trip as unlike the weekend, there were not many boats at all on the water and the lake was like glass again. I reached the Dam at 2:15. And my Journey was complete. Total trip time distance was 32.3 miles, with a total paddle time of 12 hours 10 minutes. Not including breaks and lunch. I had finished day 2 way ahead of schedule again. I had planned my pickup to arrive at 5:00 so I had some time to kill. So I gathered up all my valuables in to my backback and cabled the canoe to a railing at the dam. I then walked to the "Dam Bar and Grill" about 3 miles away on the Lexington side of the lake. There I ate one of the best cheeseburgers I have ever eaten, since I had nothing but peanut butter and Jelly for 2 straight days.

Post-trip Thoughts.

I wanted to do this trip for a long time, pretty much just to say I did it. Anyone who is reading this and thinking about giving it a try, should be a advanced paddler. If you are a new paddler, do not even think about it. There are large areas of open water one must cross. I also recommend this type of trip during the weekdays. The motorboat traffic on weekends makes this trip way more dangerous. I am kind of glad that I ran into that strong headwind on the morning of day 2, because if that would not have happened I would have been forced to blog about how incredibly easy this trip was. Other than that, I had perfect conditions for this trip. Had conditions been different, it could easily have taken much longer to do this trip. Now I only need to figure out what my next overnight adventure will be :)

PS. A special thanks goes out to my friend and awesome kayaker Karla, who picked me up and gave me a ride back to my truck. After reaching the dam I defiantly did not want to paddle 32 miles back to my truck.

Steve

Lower Saluda River - May 8th 2010

Once a year in early May, SCE&G has a planned release on the Saluda River below Lake Murray so that Canoeing for Kids can host their Raftarama. Me and a good friend of mine took advantage of this planned release and planned to run this section at a level of 10,000 CFS. After putting in at Hope Ferry Landing near the dam we paddled down to Twelve Mile Creek. With the elevated water levels, the creek was flooded with Saluda River water. We were able to paddle up until where Corley Mill Road crosses the creek about 1 mile up the creek. We saw some type of Owl near corley mill road. There is a old dam at the bridge that appears to have been some type of Mill pond. After this, we paddled back downstream and back to the river. We then paddled downstream about 4 miles of fast flatwater until we got to Oh Brother Rapids. At this level, Oh brother is a solid 2 and is the first major rapid on the Lower Saluda River. I don't know how this rapid got its name, but I imagine that someone long ago was coming down the river and after paddling many many miles on flatwater. They came across the rapids, and since they could not name the rapid "Oh S@*%", they settled on Oh Brother as a substitute. There are many different lines. Most of them are of the low Class II level. After about a half mile, next up is Stacys Ledge rapid. This is a river-wide ledge with 3 main lines through the rapid. At low water these three lines are the only ways through the rapid. During release levels very strong hydralics form in between the lines. With the strong hydralics this is rated a Class III. However if you know where the main lines are, then it is very easy to avoid the hydralics and then it is more like a Class II-. 800 yards downstream from Stacys ledge is Mill Race Rapids. Mill Race is by far the biggest rapid on the river. We got out to scout at river left and find our lines. No matter how many times I run this river, I get goosebumps everytime I look out in the Middle of this rapid at some of the waves and hydralics that form out there. At the top of Mill race I got in to a little bit of trouble but was able to brace and stay right-side up. Other than that we both had great runs down this Class III+/IV rapid. We also considered making a run of the creek line across the Island, but after looking at it and with only 1 person to set safety, we decided against it at this level. We continued on past the Zoo to Shandon rapids. I would rate Shandon a Class II+. It has always been one of my favorite rapids due to it being one of the first major rapids I ran when I first started kayaking. It is about a 40 yard long wave train with 3 to 5 foot waves being the norm at 10K. We then paddled through the confluence with the broad river and merged on to the Congaree River. The river is very wide at the confluence and I would estimate close to 30 individual islands form in this area. There are many different routes you can take through the islands. We came up under a nesting bald eagle but were unfortunately unable to get a picture. We picked different channels to go through. I ran across a whitetail deer on one of the islands. Its really neat to see all this kind of wild life literally right between the cities of Columbia and West Columbia. We made our way to Gervais street and took out. This was a very unique trip, I have never had such a great mix of whitewater and flatwater in one trip. From the flooded creek/swamps of twelvemile and the islands of the congaree to the fast Class IV whitewater of Mill Race all in one trip. I would defiantly recommend this section to any paddler.

Steve.

Intro

I'm Steve Crabb, a 28 year old man living and working in IT in the Columbia, SC area. I have always been a very active person. Seems like every weekend I am getting into some kind of adventure. Usually these adventures involve kayaking. Others include long bike rides and hiking trips. Every monday at work, I usually have quite a few people stop by and ask what I did the previous weekend knowing it had to be some type of crazy adventure. Maybe it's age but its getting harder and harder for me to remember some of my trips I've taken in years past. So I'm starting this blog as a way of remembering past trips. I will be posting new trips and also what I remember of previous trips. So please no comments about how terrible of a writer I am. I am writing this first and foremost for me and my records. If anyone else out there happens to enjoy it. Thats fine too :)