This is the continuation of the Buffalo River posts, part 1 is [here]…
Day 1
The start of day 1 was, of course, fabulous. We had a dusty bumpy van ride down gravel roads to get to the river access point, and finally standing in the cool river water was heavenly. With little fanfare and nothing more than a firm grip on our destiny and early morning Coors Lights for hydration and general cooling purposes in the ever-warming day, we got underway.
For the record, this is just about the only picture I could find where MJG actually had a paddle in the water:
Most of the pictures of the venerable Mr. G look like this, with paddle across the lap:
The river looked great and it was relatively cool in the morning, as the sun had not risen high enough over the bluffs to soak the whole river in sunlight.
As the picture shows, the bluffs in this part of the river have plenty of outcroppings and the like. At the first good looking one, we stopped for a jump in the river:
After checking the water depth (a full paddle’s worth) and several false starts (the height wasn’t the gut check issue, but more the amount of care that might be needed to avoid landing on the pretty large and menacing and surprisingly pointy-looking river rocks that were not as noticeable from the canoes), I took the plunge:
Marc’s jump was much better than mine- he blew me away on style points and didn’t even touch the bottom when he hit the water. And his picture looks pretty cool, too:
Jumps made, we paddled lazily downstream soaking up the sun and the surroundings until we made our next destination, the Nars.
continue on to [part 3]…