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In early June, we took a crew of 18 on a 3-day, 26 mile canoe trip on the Buffalo National River. We canoed, fished, camped on gravel bars, swam, cooked over open fires, told tall tales, sang camp songs and had an amazing trip.
The text below is from the trip reports emailed to the troop over a 4 day span by the Scoutmaster. Click the image to see the whole gallery.
Day 1:
The Crew met last Saturday morning at 5:30 am to finish loading our gear, food & water. We pulled out around 6:00 am and made the 1st of 3 scheduled stops in Texarkana. In order to get all the way to the river and find our camp the first night, we had to follow Mr. Kosofsky's tight schedule. The stops were short and efficient. I never saw the stopwatch, but I'm pretty sure Mr. K had one running.
We made it Silver Hill, AR at about 1:30 on Saturday and just as planned, our canoes were waiting for us down by the river.
We unloaded all of our gear and right away started placing bets as to how much of it we would actually be able to get in our canoes. Miraculously, all of it fit into our 9 canoes. Around 3:00 pm, we shoved off and set our course for Brushy Creek, 6 miles up the river.
The scenery along the river was just unbelievable. I wish the pictures could do it justice, but there's simply no way. The water was clear, you could see fish everywhere and the rock bluffs and trees topped the whole scene off.
We had a few kinks in our canoeing skills and on a couple occasions we pulled off, circled-up and brushed up on control, steering and the river rules and set out to try again. Around 6:30, we made it to camp, broke up into crew sections and went to work.
Day 1 was a long day: 425 miles by car and 6 miles by canoe. We ended the day with a great campfire program. We sang a few camp songs, told some of our tall tales and finished with Roses, Buds and Thorns.
The perfect ending to our day was looking up at the wall of trees across the river from our camp; they stretched up several hundred feet and were filled with lightning bugs.
The attached pictures are in chronological order. Thanks in advance for indulging me for the next few evenings.
"Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing." - Henry David Thoreau
Day 2:
Sunday morning started early; the adults were all up and having coffee by 6:30 (# 11, taken from the door of my tent). We had breakfast, packed up camp and had our church service. We stood in a circle on that gravel bar while Adam read a message that couldn't have been more appropriate. Could You Afford It? was the title and the message was what if God charged us for all of the magnificent things he provides: amazing landscapes, the smell of spring, a star-filled sky, sunsets, the music of a songbird. It was easy to appreciate his grace while we were surrounded by those very things.
After church, we started our 14 mile journey. Picture # 12 was taken while the loaded boats were filing out in the day's order.
About 30 minutes after we started down river, what looked like a harmless corner took out 3 of our canoes. We spent about an hour on that corner putting the 3 boats back together. Picture 13 shows part of the recovery effort. While we were there, another group came thru and lost one of their boats. We helped them retrieve their gear and get their canoe to shore.
Since Sunday was a full day on the river, it was designated as the day for the fishing derby. There were a couple dozen fish caught. Joshua caught over a dozen to take the trophy for most fish and then he, Scott and Jordan shared a 3-way tie for the largest fish. Each of them caught a 9" small mouth bass.
We enjoyed the fishing so much that by lunch time we realized that we were way behind schedule. So, we put away our fishing poles and got after it. 3 hours later, we passed Maumee and knew we were about 4 miles away and were going to make it. We beached our boats to take a little break. The boys swam for awhile and we tore thru the snack buckets to recharge.
While we were hanging out there, the most amazing thing happened. A Bald Eagle came gliding down the river and passed right over the water in front of us. I believe that God occasionally pokes us to make sure that we're paying attention and to remind us who's really in charge of the boat. Why else would an eagle fly over a group of Boy Scouts that afternoon on that little stretch of river?
After that, we agreed to paddle hard for another 45 minutes and then glide the rest of the way into camp. After one last push, the fishing poles came back out and the water battles resumed and we coasted into camp around 6:30. 14 miles made for a really long day; we zombied our way thru camp setup and dinner and livened up long enough to cook a couple of cobblers, tell a few more tall tales and sing a couple camp songs.
We really got our money's worth Sunday.
Day 3:
Monday started with cooler temperatures and a little fog on the water and of course coffee... After Mr. Kosofsky got the coffee bar up and running, he still had a little time to do a duct-tape repair on Mr. Meagher's blown out shoe.
We got the boys together to pose for a group picture in our nifty BRCT 2010 t-shirts. We packed up our river camp for the last time and hit the water for the final 6 miles.
We passed some more amazing scenery as we made our way to water creek. We stopped there for a final snack stop and played in the really cold spring water. Despite the ice cold water, Mr. Buercklin was doing cannonballs into the deep pool.
Some angry clouds and winds kicked up and we pretty much ran for our boats to finish mile 26, the last of our trip. It rained on us pretty steady for a few minutes and even that was awesome. When we arrived at our take-out point, the outfitter had over-delivered by bringing all 3 cars up to meet us. That little gesture saved us about 2 hours.
We loaded up our gear and headed for the Sylamore Creek Campground. It was pretty nice to get a hot shower after a few days on the river. We cleaned up and headed to Jo-Jo's Catfish. During dinner, the boys voted on the Best, Worst & Funniest Tall Tales. The winners were: Michael, Jordan & Mehul, respectively. The fishing trophies were also handed out at dinner. After some great catfish, we went into town to experience some Mountain View folk music.
The folk music capital of the world was a little quiet on Monday night but we did manage to find a small group of pickers. We sat down and introduced ourselves and the gentleman with the guitar asked us what we were going to sing for the group, huh? After a few seconds of panic, we sang our version of the Crawdad song. We'd sang it during two campfires, so why not? After that, we sang Down in Arkansas and after listening to some of their songs, we did an encore of the Crawdad song. The crowd was very responsive to the boys and we had a bunch of adults coming up to talk to us about our trip and tell us their scouting stories. As I told the boys, I think the folks that were out there that evening will be talking about the Boy Scouts from Plano and how they represented themselves for awhile.
On the way back to camp, we temporarily took over the local Sonic and had ice cream.
Day 3 was a great day; crammed full of adventure.
Day 4:
The final day of our 4 day trip was bittersweet. After having breakfast and packing up camp, the group signed the wooden paddle that we passed around each evening during Roses, Buds and Thorns. The paddle will go in the Scout room on Monday and hopefully become the first of many.
Our final adventure was to visit Blanchard Springs Cavern. Before our tour, we ran to the end of the park to the place where all of the water flows from the caves. The spring that the boys are standing near in picture 37 releases 11 million gallons of water a day.
From the actual spring, we went to the park HQ to join our cave tour. We took an elevator down 215 feet to the entrance of the cave. They had a system of airlocks that we had to pass thru. Those airlocks prevent the cave from exchanging air too quickly and harming the ecosystem within the cave.
The first room we went into was the Cathedral room and it was 1,100 feet long and the formations were unbelievable. There were columns of formations that stood 65 feet tall and went from floor to ceiling. The hour long cave tour was awesome. Room after room was filled with huge formations. If you ever pass thru this area, you'll have to visit Blanchard Springs Cavern.
After our tour, we had lunch in Mountain View and hit the road for the 8 hour trip home.
This was really an amazing trip and I'm so grateful that we made it safely and all of the boys had a great time. We learned alot of new skills and I believe everyone enjoyed at least a handful of first-time experiences. We learned about tying equipment in canoes, walking canoes thru rapids, cooking fish on hot rocks (amazing), cooking over open fires, we caught small-mouth bass, ate catfish, sang folk music, told tall tales and I could go on.
Special thanks to Mr. Kosofsky for the countless hours of planning. Thanks also to Mr. Buercklin for providing his expertise and experience having grown up in the area. He was an outstanding resource and continues to surprise us with his skills and talents.
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