Three of us, Charles Neikirk, Aaron Jones and Mary Finley, arrived at the Crazy Horse Campground 13 miles north of Waynesboro Friday afternoon. We all settle in, getting ready for our Sat. paddling adventure.
Since all the put-ins and take-outs for these days of paddling are on private property, Crazy Horse shuttled us both days. We put-on the river 16 miles north of Bells Bridge, where Crazy Horse is located and set off for a wonderful day on the river. We saw lots of turtles, a heron and were thrilled to spot a full grown eagle and two juveniles. The eagle, as well as, the heron stayed in front of us and kept flying down river. But finally the eagle stopped. We speculated that it had reached the edge of its territory. I perched in a tree. We paddled under it and by it taking picture and it never moved.
We stopped twice, once to play in the water and again for lunch. We didn’t see many paddlers on the river the first 8 miles and the second half, we’d run in to clusters of paddlers stopped on gravel bars. We took off the river at 3pm at Crazy Horse.
Sandy Stacks and Bev Hollingsworth joined us Sat. afternoon at the campsite. Sandy came in time to participate in our excellent potluck. Aaron is quite the cook, grilling a pork loin. Bev arrived before dark. We tried to feed her but she passed on most things.
The five of put-on at 9 am Sun. morning to an uncrowded river. We saw a few but not many paddlers. We saw turtles, ducks and one snake. We stopped at a waterfall and three of our crew climbed up to the falls.
We took off at 1 pm and the outfitter picked us up at 2. It was a great day on the river. The water level was perfect. We could see that it had dropped about a foot when we put-on Sat. and some more on Sun. Everyone had a great time and heading home on Sunday.
Click here to see the pictures.