Another beautiful day, and another tree

It was a beautiful day to be out on the bayou.  We enjoyed the great day heading down the bayou, and then on the way back, we met lots of people with the same idea.

We got to Highland Road Park a bit early so we could check out the progress of the new launch.  When the water is as low as it is right now, something more convenient than a bank launch will be really nice.  While we don’t know a completion date yet, the change from last week to this week has us starting to fidget with anticipation.

The first half of the four miles to Manchac was pretty much as expected.  There are a few spots where we can do some opportunistic tweaks, but everything was pretty much nominal.  Just beyond the large second powerline crossing (by the Not-So-Great Wall of Fountain), however, we came across the first problem.  A small tree (with lots of vines) was down.  It took a bit over an hour to take care of it (condensed into two minutes in the video above), and then it was onward down the bayou.

There were several more spots where large branchy things had caused significant catches, but they were dealt with easily enough.  They didn’t end up as photogenic, so they don’t get individual videos, but they stretched the run downstream to a good four hours’ work.  Of course, it was way too nice a day to turn around that early, so we paddled all the way down to Ward Creek and back, and on the way we saw the new railroad bridge.

If you’ve paddled Bayou Manchac with us, you may remember all the wood pilings and crossbeams of the old bridge.  The new one has bays perhaps twice as wide and full height, so paddling with higher, faster water will be easy.  We probed around for old pilings, and even with the low water, most were well below the surface (two feet for one we measured), so paddling through in low water should also be much nicer.

We turned back at Airline Highway Park (the State Fairgrounds) at the confluence of Bayou Manchac and Ward Creek, and as we headed back up Fountain, we took care of some things on our “optional” list — mostly things that haven’t finished falling yet (a small tree half down, some log-sized branches suspended by vines, etc.).  And then we saw this!  Those of you who were around early in the transformation of Bayou Fountain into a paddle trail should recognize this fluted bucket.  Yes, indeed, it’s another 20-some pounds of queso fresco!

While we didn’t see anyone when we left out early to do paddle trail maintenance, the bayou certainly wasn’t forgotten on such a great paddling day.  We saw one canoe heading out on Manchac for some fishing, and then along the way back up Bayou Fountain, we counted eight more people out paddling.  A hard day’s work on paddle trail maintenance always feels that much more rewarding when you see people out enjoying the water your work keeps open.

We can’t help but smile when we think that we had at least ten paddlers out on the bayou on a normal Saturday in March in spite of the difficult launch.  How much better is it going to be when it’s so much easier to get in an out thanks to an improved paddle launch?  To whet your appetite, here’s a “paddler’s-eye view” of the launch as of this weekend.

With the launch construction moving right along, we’ll probably spend some extra time working Bayou Fountain so that it’s in tip-top shape for any new paddlers we may soon have out there.  For example, we’ll have to finally get around to bringing the heavy tackle to extract the remains of that couch that’s inconveniently embedded in the bottom right behind where the archery range used to be.  Should be fun… and perhaps a bit muddy, but I repeat myself.

Next weekend, there’s a Sunset Paddle with BREC Outdoor Adventure on Friday, and they’ve also got a “Kayak Fishing Workshop and Demo Day” on Saturday (registration deadline for the workshop is Thursday, so if you’re interested in joining them for that, do click over to BREC to sign up).  We might throw in another Bayou Fountain work day expedition if anyone’s interested (or if we just feel like another good day’s work), so let us know if it sounds fun.  We’ll see you out there.