124 miles on Current River

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ISSN 87501899

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River HillsTravelerVOL. 41, NO. 7 ST. CLAIR, MO 63077

For many years, around many campfires, we had been talking about floating the Current River from Montauk Spring down as

far as maybe Van Buren. We would take a week’s vacation sometime and do it. Last year turned out to be the year. On our spring float, Steve announced that his wife was going on a week’s trip in July with her mother and he had a free pass. We decided to go for it. Steve, Mark and I each have our own canoes. We’ve been floating together for years, logging at least 100 float trips together, with sometimes as many as 10 floats in a season. After consulting A Paddler’s Guide to Missouri, we decided to float from Baptist Camp to Doniphan, 124 miles. After so many overnight floats, mostly on the Current, Jacks Fork and Eleven Point Rivers, we’ve come to know what to expect from each other. Each guy would be responsible for two meals. Steve and Mark know I’m a good cook and always surprising them with some new delicacy. Mark and I knew Steve would bring the great seasoned pork steaks he gets from a local meat shop. Steve and I know Mark works wonders with simple things like green beans and black eyed peas. The food was a cinch, but what of the other logistics? Everybody asks “How did you get your vehicle from one end to

Continued on Page 2Story & photos by Mike Kircher

The bluff at Big Creek: “may be the prettiest stretch of river we passed.”

Boating .................... 5Calendar ................ 23Classified .......... 25-26Editorial ................... 6Fishing....... 10, 15, 16Floating ............. 3, 17History........... 6, 8, 21Hunting ........ 7, 8, 20

Indians ................... 21Nature .... 6, 13, 15, 19Outdoor News 3, 8, 19Recipes, Food .. 20, 22 Seasons .................. 10SunMoon ............... 10Trapping ................ 10

MAPS IN THIS ISSUEClearwater Lake ...................................15Lower Current & Eleven Point River ..17Lower Meramec River .........................18Parkland/Arcadia Valley/Black River ..27Upper Current & Jacks Fork Rivers .....16Upper Meramec, Huzzah, Courtois .....18Wappapello Lake..................................15

By Jo Schaper

When the National Park Service asked for public comment on the 534-page draft Draft General Management Plan for the Ozark

National Scenic Riverways, it opened the door for a flood of diverse, creative and strongly-held views. And that’s what the NPS received in four public meetings and written and online responses during the public comment period ending Feb. 8. By the time Traveler arrives, officials at park service headquarters in Van Buren will be wading through the responses, which may help to chart a course for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways for the next 20 or so years. “I was very pleased with the outcome of the public meetings, and the tremendous public interest,” said Park Superintendent Bill Black. “At all of the meetings, the people have been passionate about the rivers.” Nearly 1,500 people attended meetings in Eminence, Salem, Van Buren and Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb.

On Nov. 8, 2013, NPS released the Draft General Management Plan and Big Spring Wilderness Environmental Impact Statement, for a 60-day

comment period ending Jan. 8. Inclement winter weather postponed the meetings twice, and extended

the 60-day comment period to Feb. 8. As of Jan. 31, over 1,000 written comments had been received by the park, as well as an earful

of informal feedback from groups as diverse as longtime native residents of the area, environmentalists, equestrians, paddle sport enthusiasts, motorized boat users, wilderness advocates, local, state and federal government officials, rock climbers, and people several states away who vacation on Riverways. Four alternatives were proposed in the GMP document: No Action, and Alternatives A, B and C. A, B, and C proceeded from highly restrictive, to moderately restrictive, to less restrictive of access to park resources and acceptable future visitor behavior. The NPS preferred alternative, Alternative B, was decided upon by park managers at several levels, not just Washington, D.C. nor Van Buren, said a park employee who declined to be named. A No Action alternative had to be included, however park officials said from the beginning

that “no action” was not acceptable. This led to Continued on Page 24

DGMP commenters share passion for Riverways

CAPACITY CROWD — More than 500 people turned out for the final open house on the DGMP at Powder Valley Nature Center in Kirkwood Jan. 22. Jo Schaper photo.

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

February2014 RIVER HILLS TRAVELER -- PAGE 2

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Continued on Page 1 the other?” Simple. We met on Friday night at Steve’s house near Doniphan. We loaded everything on Steve’s canoe trailer and left our vehicles there. Steve had a buddy from work ride with us on Saturday to the put in and drive the truck back to Doniphan. We shoved off from Baptist Camp on Saturday, July 13 at 10 a.m. Our plan was to do 10 to 12 miles the first day. We camped just below Welch Spring. Our routine each day was to get off the river about 4 p.m., set up camp and gather firewood. Then we would relax in the river for about an hour, take our daily bath and cook supper. For our first meal we decided to celebrate and start with filet mignon. When you do a trip like this you have to learn good ice management. I had four bottles of frozen water in my cooler and everything that could be frozen was frozen. Everything put in the cooler had been refrigerated at

least 24 hours. Nothing warm goes in the cooler. We packed a small cooler each morning for the day so we had no need to open our big coolers until dinner time. Of course, we did buy fresh ice at many of the canoe rentals we passed.

My original plan was to take only 28 beers and allow myself four beers each day. The first day I drank eight beers so that plan didn’t work. It didn’t take long to figure out that the canoe rentals all sold beer. On Sunday morning we made a stop at Akers’ Ferry for ice. Aker’s has a neat store with nice

people. They were even nice to my dog, Jesse. We paddled back into Cave Spring and did the walk back to Pulltite Spring. That night we camped at Sinking Creek. Steve figured out that if we swam in the river first, the water in Sinking Creek would feel like bath water. Then we enjoyed Mark’s marinated chicken breast. We made a brief stop at Carr’s at

Round Springs Monday morning for ice. While there, I heard a commotion across the river. I looked and saw several of the wild horses we had stirred up retreating into the woods. That day we passed Big Creek. With the beautiful bluff and huge gravel bar, this was maybe the prettiest stretch of river we passed. We camped about a mile above Two Rivers. That night I cooked the pork filet mignon, always a hit on the gravel bar. That night we had maybe our best fire of the week. After the spring floods this year, there was no shortage of dead wood on any gravel bar. On Tuesday morning, we were on the river by 8 a.m. and shortly at Two Rivers. This was a serious ice stop, since we had no more ice available until Van Buren, about 34 miles away.

That night we camped across from Paint Rock access and enjoyed some of Steve’s pork steaks. It was here we encountered a very persistent raccoon that even Jesse couldn’t chase away. Let me tell you about my dog. Jesse has been floating with me for 12 years. Many people have told me he is the best floating dog they have ever seen. He won’t jump out of the canoe until I tell him he can. He has been known to swim a mile at a time. When he is tired and wants back in, he lets me know. I wanted to take him on this trip because Jesse is 12 years old and I don’t know how many good years he has left in him. Seeing how he handled this trip, I think he’s got a few more left. Continued on Page 4

A journey of 124 miles beginswith vehicle drop at the end

LOADED AND READY — The three canoeists put in at Baptist Camp with sunshine sparkling the Current on a Saturday morning.

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By Jo SchaperTwo of the most important recreation-al stream gages in Missouri were shut down on New Year's Eve for lack of funding, but agitation from the public which uses those gages enabled the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to craft a solution to keep them operat-ing until next Sept. 30. The gages, on the Jacks Fork at Hwy. 17 and the upper Current River just above Akers Ferry, were shut down when they lost funding from the National Park Ser-vice. The physical river gages belong to the USGS, which has the expertise to run them and maintain the data, a task it does with cost-share money from other agencies or companies which pay about $15,000 a year per gage. Service was restored Jan. 21. “USGS is able to fund some gages relating to the National Streamflow Information System, and a couple of those were being funded by Missouri

Department of Natural Resources,” said Shane Barks, deputy director of the USGS Rolla field office. “We were able to move funding streams for a couple of those around. These gages are now turned back on, and they are funded through next September. We’re working on trying to find some ar-rangement to get them funded into the foreseeable future. We know there is a great deal of interest in those gages by the general public.” For more information, visit www.travtalk.net and enter "USGS" in the search window.

Stream gages restored on Upper Jacks Fork, Current

NOT AN OUTHOUSE — A typical USGS stream gage station, shown here inside and out, is run on batteries, augmented by solar power. Pho-tos courtesy USGS.

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Continued from Page 2down the river each day. Steve had said that maybe we could have a fish fry one night, so I brought along some cornmeal and oil. But they didn’t catch much, so no fish fry. That is all I will say about that. It was on Wednesday when we started meeting all the fishermen on the river in the morning. Many

of these were retired men living the dream. As we approached Van Buren, we were shocked at the proliferation of houses on the river. Nice houses. We stopped around noon at The Landing to restock on ice. The Landing has grown to be quite an impressive place that I hear is a zoo on Saturdays. We floated on down about four miles to Big Spring. I had

not been there in a long time. There is a place at the mouth of the spring to tie up, then we walked up to the spring. After the big rains this year, Big Spring was really gushing. That night we camped somewhere around the 95-mile mark of our trip. That night I made my new recipe I found for Cajun casserole, made with andouille sausage. It was a big hit. On Thursday, we were on our home stretch. We knew we would pass the 100-mile mark on our journey at Panther Spring. We started experiencing longer and deeper pools of water. Through Wednesday, pretty much all we had to do was steer. We figured we were averaging about three miles an hour without much effort. That changed this day. We had to

do a lot more paddling. And we started passing a lot of houses on the river. We had trouble finding a gravel bar that wasn’t marked private property or within sight of a house. But we found one, maybe the best one of the week. That night, we had

Mark’s last meal. Mark’s wife had brought home a gallon size can of Dinty Moore beef stew. After Mark doctored it up with onions and spices, it was delicious. And with plenty of leftovers, Jesse had his fill also. We figured we started Friday morning with about 13 miles to go. This was the hottest day so far. All week we had great weather with 80’s during the day and 60’s at night. It rained on us a few times for maybe 20-30 minutes. Now we were encountering a lot of long deep pools. No just steering here. You had to paddle. It was here that there were houses on the river everywhere. Really nice houses. Many of these had steps that led right down to the river. I guess this is progress. Here the river is realigned to fit the needs of the people. I can only imagine that some day we will regret this. The river always wins. We arrived at the ramp in Doniphan about 3 p.m. on Friday. I must admit, I was worn out. We all talked about how we could go farther. But I think we were all ready to get off the river. We hadn’t experienced air conditioning, used a toilet or taken a shower in a week. And we really didn’t miss those modern conveniences. I have always wondered how the Current and Jack’s Fork Rivers got chosen for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Now I know, these rivers are treasures that need to be preserved. Without this protection, I can only imagine that the entire river would be lined with houses. It was a great week, we met a lot of nice people on the river. I want to thank my floating buddies Steve and Mark for a great week. I remember about 20 years ago we were standing on a gravel bar and we looked at each other and said “When will we be too old to do this anymore?” Let’s hope we have many more float trips to go. It will be hard to beat this one. Mike Kircher lives in Eureka. His floating partners, both formerly of Eureka, are Steve Amalong, Fairdealing, and Mark Tweet, Pomme de Terre Lake. Mike’s recipe for Cajun casserole can be found at www.TravTalk.net.

DINING IN STYLE — Mike’s pork filet mignons are always a hit on a gravel bar, especially with black beans, onion, red pepper and white asparagus with garlic and butter. The fourth filet is for Jesse.

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