Buffalo River Weekend

This weekend I went down to Arkansas to do some canoing and camping with some friends from school. It was a blast! We hijacked the Departments canoes Friday evening and set up camp around 9:30pm right on the banks of the Buffalo River. After a good campfire we got some sleep under the stars. Saturday morning two of us shuttled a vehicle to our take-out spot while the rest of us broke camp and dried out our wet sleeping bags and tents which resulted from a heavy dew.

We paddled all day and stopped only once for a lunch break. The river was really low so we had to walk the canoes through some of the more shallow rapids. We saw lots of birds along the side of the river (something like 30 heron's) and fish in the pools. We had to paddle a lot because the river was also running really slow and we wanted to get 15 miles done by the end of the day. A large gravel bar along the bank of the river provided a camping spot for Saturday night.

Sunday we woke up to a cold morning and another heavy dew. The bonus was all of the fog in the canyon looked really neat. Breaking camp took a while as we were trying to prolong the inevitable usage of our sore muscles from the previous day of canoing. The day started out overcast with some sprinkles on the river, but around noon that cleared up to a nice sunny afternoon. After paddling the remaining 10 miles to our take out point we enjoyed some nice swimming in the river and tossing the Frisbee around. All our stuff was packed back up into the cars and we headed home!

I really enjoyed the trip and it totally wetted my appetite for more. We can't wait for Atalie to get down here to (hopefully) enjoy it too!