Table of Contents
Tigards Awarded Lifetime Membership
Trip Reports
Christy Long: 2006 New Year Guad/San Marcos
Ken Anderson: 2006 New Year Clear Creek
Christy Long: Jan 07, 2006 Surfside
Natalie Wiest: San Antonio River
Natalie Wiest: North Shore of Galveston Bay
Natalie Wiest: Remember Goliad!
John Bartos: Buffalo Bayou 01/15/06
Mark Ittleman: Anahuac Harborfest
Mark Ittleman: Nov 2005 Sierra Club Paddle
by Mark Andrus
There were four of us in four boats on the trip-Jack Richardson, Patrick Burke, Shaun Burke and I. Patrick had a blue Dagger Reflection 15 canoe and I had a red one. Jack paddled an Old Town Discovery 169. Shaun paddled a Dagger Atlantis sea kayak. We finally got on the water about 4PM, Wednesday, December 28, 2005 after having to drive to the Highway 21 Bridge, unload, and get the cars down to Hidalgo Falls and the drivers back up to the bridge. James and Patti of Southwest Paddlesports drove the drivers back to the bridge. We offered them $40 for the shuttle and they refused it. They suggested we give it to the Hidalgo Falls improvement fund with the Texas River Protection Association (TRPA). There are plans to get a water well, bathrooms and showers at Hidalgo Falls if TRPA gets enough donations for it. We also discussed plans for the Hidalgo Falls Festival that will occur on the April 8-9 weekend which will have many events of interest to paddlers.
We paddled a couple of miles downstream and found a gravel bar to camp on a few minutes before sunset. We eat dinner. I found a bottle of single malt Scotch in a bag that I had forgot about. I shared it and Patrick shared some of the Scotch he had. It was not easy getting my tent set up in the dark after that: however I managed. It is just as well that had much experience setting up the tent before.
We could not get on the river until around ten the next morning. Patrick and Shaun had too much gear to fool around with. We saw some large petrified logs in the river about a mile past the gauging station. The river was generally shallow and not all that wide until just before we reached the FM 60 Bridge where the river broadened and deepened and the wind blew against us. I had us push on beyond the 60 bridge for about 1 mile before we finally camped in order to keep to the schedule we needed to do finish the 53 on Sunday. We found another gravel bar to camp on around 4:15 on Thursday night. I watched the 6 o’clock weather report on a handheld TV set I had and put up my tent before dark. I called the office on the cell phone to be sure that everything was all right there. The Brazos does not have the isolation that the Pecos or Rio Grande have. We saw many planes that were on the approach to Easterwood airport, which was nearby.
On Friday, we stopped for lunch at another gravel bar. We saw some children playing across the river. A hundred feet behind them, we heard a chain saw and saw trees falling down. We wondered about whether it is wise to cut down trees that might be protecting the cut bank from erosion. The parents came out and explained that they were not going to cut down too many trees so that would not cause a problem. Both the children and parents admired the canoes and liked the idea of going down the river. We explained that Jack Richardson was continuing paddling the Brazos in various stages all the way from Possum Kingdom to the mouth. He finished paddling everything upstream of where we were and had previously done some of the downstream sections. There was a mild Class I rapid around where the Batts Ferry road hits the bank. We camped on another gravel bar that night.
On Saturday, December, 31, we set a goal to paddle past the railroad bridge and camp at a gravel bar just before the mighty (not really) Yegua reaches the Brazos. Jack almost had a beaver ram his canoe. We were seeing large groups of wild hogs going to the river to drink and finally running off when they finally heard us. Their eyesight is not that great. One set of piglets was stuck up on a cut bank, but their mother was making a lot of noise. We reached the sandbar just before dark. We heard shots slightly after dark, but it was too late to move. We saw a fireworks display that was several miles away judging from the difference when we saw it and heard it. Someone in a four wheeler pulled up the next morning and explained that he had been shooting wild hogs. We were asleep long before midnight.
The wind was at our backs when we paddled on New Year’s Day, which was the last day. The paddling was lazy and we let the wind push us. The riverside scenery was nice. We reached Hidalgo Falls around 3PM. The water level was the lowest I had ever seen at Hidalgo Falls and I saw rocks exposed that I had never seen exposed. Patti had warned me that we would have to take out the upper part, since it would take getting the boats a couple of hundred feet over land to get out at the ledge. Jack asked me if I was sure that I was in the right spot.
I got up
the stairs and brought my truck over. We struggled to get the sea kayak
pulled up with the manual pulleys that are at the upper part. We were
pulling up the boats with the gear still in them. Patrick got his Suburban
and we started using his electric winch to pull up the canoes. I found
an isolated part of the upper campground to change out of my river clothes.
It would have been nicer if the showers we want would have already been
built. Please contribute to the Hidalgo Falls improvement fund. We went
over to James and Patti’s trailer to say goodbye. They got out beer,
chips and cheese sauce. We finally left to go home when it got dark.