Bayou Fountain — August 15, 2015

It wasn’t quite as hot Saturday as it’s been for a while.  The bayou was low, but the paddling was quite nice.

Whenever we have a fun paddle or bring extra boats to a BREC Outdoor Adventure event, we take the time to give the boats a nice cleaning.  All the mud and leaves and twigs that may have accumulated during work days is washed away, leaving the boats practically shiny.  It’s a bit of a fleeting glimpse, of course, as even if they don’t end up too muddy, they’ll be quite well decorated by the next paddle trail maintenance expedition.  In this case, it was mere hours of spotless (well, less spotted) presentability before we were back out at the park ready to head down Bayou Fountain.

The Bayou Fountain expeditions are certainly toward the “hard work and getting dirty” end of the spectrum, but we rather enjoy them.  There’s a sense of accomplishment every time you head out and take care of the paddle trail, and knowing you’re keeping it maintained so everyone can use it just makes it better.  We’re happy enough when people paddle for fun, so we don’t spend too much time trying to recruit people to come along to help on the expeditions, but when occasionally people do show up to paddle along or even put in a bit of work themselves, that’s exceptionally great.

This time around, we had one more small tree down across the bayou.  For some reason, it seems that we’ve been having more than we’d expect down this summer, but lately they’ve just been small trees snapping off at the bank.  If you ran across one of these while out paddling, chances are it wouldn’t be too difficult at all to squeeze through, around, or over.  Of course, it’s much more convenient if they’re already taken care of before you get there, which is where the paddle trail maintenance expeditions come in.

It took a little while to cut this one up thanks to its significant length (formerly height) and branching, but it was easy enough to saw to bits using our nice 18″ razor-tooth saws.  After enough trips, you get quite good at using hand saws from a floating canoe.  Mike still decided at one point that standing was just too convenient for working on the submerged piece he was sawing, so he hopped out and cut that while waist deep in the crystal clear waters of Bayou Fountain.  With just the one small tree down, we decided to extend the expedition somewhat by taking care of several additional mostly-fallen small trees.  It was a very productive day.

Of course, there’s always time to stop for some flowers or to watch a passing owl.  We also collected some more decent lumber from the bayou to help with footing where the pipe at the launch is washing too much dirt away.  Of course, with the bayou so low and the ground so dry, we couldn’t pound much of anything in this time, but at least we’ll have it all handy when it’s muddy again.  All in all, a great expedition on Bayou Fountain, and the paddle trail is unimpeded as ever.  Oh, and lest I forget, there were virtually no mosquitoes out there at all.  Now that’s a nice day.