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I was not on the trip that was mentioned in A Pecos River Journal June 3-12, 1994 in The Lower Pecos River by Louis Aulbach and Jack Richardson, but my sixth trip on the Pecos from Pandale down was from May 30-June 5, 2004, which was almost exactly 10 years later. I had taken three of the trips before the Lake Amistead had gone down in the mid-1990s and the other three after that. I had also been on a trip upstream from the old Highway 90 takeout upstream to camp just upstream of the railroad bridge for New Years, 2004 for 3 days. That trip was accomplished by sailing a 36-foot canoe upstream and we had to paddle it back downstream, which was harder than sailing. Another trip I had taken in 2000 involved paddling sea kayaks from the old Highway 90 takeout one mile down the Pecos and then into the Rio Grande for about 30 miles into Lake Amistead, which was quite a windy trip. The winds can be quite strong and they usually blow from the southeast, which is downstream.
The latest trip started Sunday, May 30 when we shuttled to Pandale to the put-in.
There were five people and four dogs on the trip. The people were Jack Richardson, Matt (a Texas A&M student), Jay and Barbara Johnson and I. We left the river bank after 2 PM; but we still reached the Ledges campsite 11 miles downriver. We were able to paddle until about 8 PM because it did not get dark until after 9 PM. I did not stay awake much longer than that. I did not have to set up a tent the whole trip because it did not rain the whole trip, but it did get cool a couple of nights. I used a Roll a Cot. During the night, the dogs tore into a bag of gorp that I did not secure. I did not know that dogs ate gorp.
The next day (Monday), we passed Everett Canyon at mile 17, but we did not stop because there was a group having a picnic. There had been a few other groups from Pandale on down. I was used to being in either the only group on the river or maybe seeing one other group the whole week during winter trips. After Everett Canyon come the dreaded flutes, which are shallow, sharp limestone ridges underwater which make it hard to pass the next 7 miles without periodically having to get out and push the boat over the ridges. The flutes were not as hard as usual because we had a good flow on the Pecos (way over 200 cfs). We stopped for the second night about 5 miles into the flutes.
The equipment I used on the trip was mostly old and low tech. I borrowed an old Old Town Discovery 174 canoe from Jack to avoid putting too much wear on my Dagger Reflection 15 or Caption. The canoe paddle I used most of the time was over 15 years old and had a heavy aluminum shaft and plastic blade. My paddling clothes included an old long sleeved shirt and some long nylon pants I had. I had a hat with a brim all the way around and which included a tie string. I wore thin gloves sometimes. All of those precautions were used to avoid sunburn. All of our cooking was done on alcohol stoves which have no moving parts to go bad.
The only really high tech equipment I brought with me were a GPS, LED flashlights, a portable radio which had AM/FM/ shortwave, and a cell phone. The cell phone was too far away from any tower to transmit anything. I tried to find news on the shortwave, but it is mostly European news that was of no importance to me. I used the GPS to mark landmarks in the Pecos River book. The LED flashlights were good, because I did not have to take any batteries above AA in size.
The next day (Tuesday), we paddled all the way through the flutes and made our camp around mile 28. It was after the Harkell Canyon entrance but before Harkell Rapid. We did not camp in Harkell Canyon like we often do in winter, because we wanted more breezes in the summer.
On Wednesday, we explored a shelter cave around mile 31 and saw a baby owl in it. We picked up spring water at the last reliable spring along the river at mile 33. Toward the end of the day, we looked in Mulberry Cave. The entrance had some crystals in it but we saw too many spiders further in the cave and decided to go no further into it. We have often camped by Mulberry Cave in winter because it is sheltered. This time, we went a bit further downstream to camp around mile 34.
We paddled past Lewis Canyon on Thursday. We had obtained permission to look at the petroglyphs on the plateau downstream of the canyon so we spent an hour or two looking at them. The Indians had carved designs into the rocks for several acres several thousand years ago. Our camp was right before we got to Lewis Canyon rapid at mile 39.
We had to line three rapids on Friday: Lewis Canyon, Cold Water Canyon and Painted Canyon. One consolation is we could run Waterfall Rapid which has a good 3 or 4 foot drop chute without obstructions. We had lunch at the Wier Dam and I watched as the others fished. We camped at mile 49, because we wanted to get a camp spot before we got to the lake. Another group had the same idea and they camped around the bend from us.
The last day (Saturday) turned out to be the hardest paddling day for us. We started early but paddling took most of the day. We knew we hit lake around mile 52 because all current stopped. The lake has been coming back up so that was at least a mile before the lake started six months before. However, it still was not at the full level it was in the early 1990s when the lake started at mile 48. When Lake Amistead was full, we would hire a power boat to take us in over the lake to save an extra day of paddling.
Now, we have to paddle the full 60 miles to the takeout. The worst part of the trip was after we passed the railroad bridge at mile 55. We had to fight the wind all the rest of the way in to past the highway bridge and to the boat ramp near mile 60. After that, I had to walk up the steep road to get my truck from the parking lot and get it to the boat ramp.
I stayed that night in Comstock with Jack. The next day, I went by the Park Service store coming into Del Rio and bought several books about the Pecos and Big Bend region. I walked over into Ciadad Acuna and ate lunch at a good seafood restaurant. I bought a bottle of Kahlua and a straw hat. I went to visit Jay at his bed and breakfast in Del Rio. He spent a couple of hours discussing his plans in the fall to sail a canoe as far as he could go along the Texas-Mexico border with his wife, Barbara, and Jack. I was invited to go on the trip with them but I had to decline since my law practice would probably not take an absence of three months. Then I had to finish the drive home.
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