Kayak Canoe Alabama

Monday, June 21, 2004

Boiling Creek in June

Boiling Creek
Sunday, June 20, 2004
by Brint Adams brint.adams@us.army.mil


We drove for about 65 minutes from home to I-10 exit 31 and south to the Yellow River bridge. We put in at the road 211 wooden bridge over Boiling Creek and started down at about 10:30AM. It was another beautiful hot day, with a very slight breeze and nice cool, clear water.

The pitcher plants were very prolific, although most of the blooms were now gone. Further down, we found some pitcher plant blooms ready to open, which may be a second flowering season. There were plenty of blooming cow lilies, water lilies, banana lilies and pickerelweed as well as club-rush, golden club and cattail.

We saw and heard a soaring osprey carrying some recently caught prey, maybe a small rabbit or squirrel. He was agitated about something and reluctant to land to enjoy his feast.

Part way down stream, we stopped for a refreshing dip and walked back in aways on a small connector stream towards a back bayou that connects back to the creek. Further down, we turned back in to the right to the bayou, looping around and back to the main channel. Again, a little further downstream, we took a left on a narrow channel and followed it for quite aways until it came back to Boiling Creek, further down. I would not consider it a shortcut, but did make for an interesting cut through the back bayou. Once back to the main channel, we continued to the lunch spot where the boat ramp comes down to the creek, right before it enters Yellow River. Yellow River was very high, probably flooded, which in turn backed up into the lower end of Boiling Creek. This slowed the current down considerably on the lower end of the creek and turned the water much darker.

Once we started out into the Yellow River, we found it moving along quickly, and it didn't take long to find the shortcut cut-through. The water was moving swiftly through the narrow channel and we soon found a few obstacles to overcome. First, there was a low branch we had to duck way down to get under and then there was a log we couldn't get our canoe under. So, we got out and portaged around it, which was quite easy as there was no bank to climb up and down. The cut-through is suprisingly short and all of a sudden we were back into the Yellow River again, supposedly cutting off about 0.75-1.0 miles of the trip. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we exited at the bridge and headed home.

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