Bayou Fountain — September 12, 2015

It was a beautiful day out on the bayou Saturday.  It was practically fall, which, I suppose, confused one tree.

With my usual compatriots on the bayou away on other important business, I headed out to Bayou Fountain early Saturday morning.  Apparently not quite early enough, as the parking area was nearly full already with many a school bus and a plethora of other vehicles.  Fortunately, the canoe trailer is very light, so I disconnected it and walked it around to the grass side of the pipe fence.  One space is better than three when it’s packed, after all.

With the bayou about two and a half feet below Rackley Bridge, it was a nice, relaxing paddle at first.  Of course, Mike was not along for the expedition — lately he’s has an almost uncanny ability to know when a tree is down and just happen to not make it out on those weekends.  Ben suggested that perhaps Mike has a drone he hasn’t told us about.  (If you hear buzzing while you’re out on the bayou, it might not be insect-based.)

One little tree is hardly a huge burden for us these days.  We’re practically used to it, so I switched from relaxation to “I sawed, I sawed a woody log” mode without incident.  First thing off is always the crown and branches, and the current wasn’t too, too much.  I was enough to make it a bit more fun, but better too much current than not enough when you’re doing paddle trail maintenance.

After the branches are off, the next step is to start cutting off flowable logs.  Thankfully, this type of tree is fairly swift cutting at least on pieces above the water.  I had to pause a couple times, but the entertaining “sploosh!” as a several-foot-long log plummets horizontally into the water made it worthwhile.  For once, this was a fallen tree with no poison ivy and no crazy-thick vine jacket, so call it no better than a category two fall.

With the tree sufficiently dispatched, I continued the rest of the way to Bayou Manchac.  There was one nice jam that took a few cuts to permanently dispatch, but that was it as far as light obstructions went.  The only sign of old Fort Fountain was a bit of rippling in the water if you knew where it used to be.  It was an easy enough day that I even took out a few long logs that merely looked suspicious as I paddled along.

The current heading back was a bit more than normal, but it was no problem.  There was one half-fallen tree that I left for next time, but the bayou was in excellent condition for paddling.  With the weather starting to hint that we might actually have a few weeks of fall sometime in the not-too-distant future, we’re looking forward to our next trip out there.  We’ll hit it again next Saturday as usual (we do have a half-fallen tree left, after all).  Come out and join us if you’d like.  We can always use company.

Oh, and by the way, one more thing…  We’ve got a paddle event coming up on October 10th that you so do not want to miss.  Full details will be coming out on September 19th, but let’s just say that it might be the greatest thing since, I don’t know, maybe a nice MLT when the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe…