Table of Contents
Thank You Letter to Rudy Rivers
Camp Mohawk Instruction and Camp
Minutes from May 2006 General Meeting
Trip Reports
Anne Olden: Lake Woodlands Paddle
Christy Long: Medina River Cleanup
Cindy Bartos: Memorial Day Paddle
Oyster
Creek
by Natalie Wiest
Exploratory trip of May 20, 2006
Mark Andrus, Marilyn Kircus, Natalie Wiest: all paddling canoes – with kayak paddles!
The three of us really enjoyed paddling this beautiful stretch of Oyster Creek. Since none of us were familiar with it, I had posted it to the HCC site as an “exploratory trip”, and now that we have explored it, I would like to recommend it as very tripworthy.
We
met at the CR226 crossing, just east of the town of Clute. There is a
nice (well, by canoe standards) boat ramp with good, hard-surface access
to the water. To get there from Clute, go east on 226, which is called
Stratton Ridge Road in town. We met at 9:30 and by 10:15 were ready to
paddle off, having run a shuttle to Oyster Creek Municipal Park for our
takeout, about 6 miles downstream.
We
had the creek entirely to ourselves. Little blue herons, little greens,
snowy egrets, great blue herons were frequent sightings. As I waited for
Mark and Marilyn to run the shuttle, I watched swallows feeding their
young in the nests under the 226 bridge. We saw only an occasional splash
of alligators, which I presume to be abundant on this stretch of water.
The most striking overall feature was the beautiful big oak woodlands
on both sides of the creek, although pushed back by a levee on the lower
stretches. Since I had just read the history of the area, I could easily
imagine barges moving up and downstream in the pre-Civil war plantation
era, laden with cotton or sugar cane on its way to market, or supplies
coming back upstream.
The woodlands were full of birds as well, but without binoculars we didn’t try very hard to locate or identify the songsters. The big oaks negated the wind effects on some stretches; the bends of the stream meant we had the wind at our backs part of the way; in our faces at others. Current was not noticeable; it would be an interesting experiment to try running this in the opposite direction (“downstream” to “upstream”) on a strong south wind. It took us only four hours to run the stretch, including two short breaks.
Oyster
Creek Municipal Park is a very nice facility with covered picnic pavilions,
flush toilets (yeah – a great feature for a paddling trip), and
huge wooded picnic grove where we ate our lunch. It also has a mega-playground
for the younger set; and a long fishing pier. The park has mowed banks
on the river for about a quarter of a mile – great potential for
a large canoeing or kayaking event like Rendezvous. It is east of the
town of Oyster Creek on highway 523; there is a paved boat ramp (but no
parking) just south and west of the 523 crossing; the park is on the north
and east side.
This is a very nice stretch of water, no big skill challenges, and lovely scenery. You should check it out for yourself, or maybe we can get a club trip together. See you on the water!