Bayou Fountain — The Lost Posts — January 24, 2015

A week after the previous trip, rain had the bayou up again.  Cue the ominous music and sit back for another of The Lost Posts.

With even more rain leaving the bayou up conveniently high, I called Mike and set another work day on Bayou Fountain.  It’s always fun when you’ve got more water and a bit of current to work with.  It helps things get moving and out of the way.

Not many people would volunteer to head out to paddle on the bayou and do wet manual labor when it’s 36°F at 8am, but we’re pretty much used to it by now.  You wear appropriate layers.  You make appropriate puns.  Oh, and you get really, really cool views as a reward.  Seeing the bayou covered in misty dancing vapor is a sight, indeed.

Another sight is old number 15.  Again.  I wouldn’t say we expected it, but the gap’s been narrowing over the last year, and with the big jam from the previous week, it wasn’t unlikely there’d be work to do.  And work to do, there was.  We hit it again with saws and winch, waders and rakes, and we opened it back up more than it’s been in a while.  It was mostly flotsam and hidden logs, and if there’s one thing we’ve figured out by now, that would be it.

Now *that* looks better.  The water’s over the banks at this level, so it’s not *quite* as wide as it looks, but it’s wide enough again that there shouldn’t be any serious problems for some time.  We’ll just have to add it to the list to do a little bit off the jam every six or nine months, and things should be fine.  With a couple downed trees already taken care of the previous trip, that was about the end of the work this time.  We hit Bayou Manchac and turned back to the park.

Even though it didn’t make it all the way up to 60°F, officially, there were still people out on the bayou enjoying some paddling.  I can hardly wait to see what it looks like when we have a “real” paddle launch and nice spring or fall weather to enjoy.  It’s going to be fantastic.  (And now, on to the next installment of The Lost Posts.)