Project ReWard — Expedition Six

For the sixth expedition of PaddleBR’s Project ReWard, we headed out again to the rapidly diminishing Ward Creek Lumberyard at Pecue to polish off the remains of the epic jam.  It was another very long day, but what a difference a couple very long days made.

After the quick one-mile approach paddle, we got right to work.  It didn’t look like there was that much work to do, but it was the wood below the surface that made the jam so epic.  In the timelapse video, you see us walking back and forth on the upstream side of the bridge.  All of that was walking on top of one giant log, which you can see during the last two and a half hours or so of the video as we pulled it up from the water as far as it could be budged.

Since by itself it had basically blocked the bridge, we figured it was only right to refer to it all day as “the dam log”, but when we pulled out a tape reel and measured it at easily six feet around, it needed a better nickname, so we hereby dub it “El Jefe”.  With it up and out of the way, we declared victory at Pecue Lane and headed back upstream a mere eight hours and change after arriving at the bridge.

Of course, with all the logs, trees, and debris we’ve shifted at Pecue, the Derelict, and Barringer, naturally, we expected some rework to be needed as things gradually start settling out and flowing downstream.  We did a quick aerial survey, and as expected, there’s a small collection building at the Derelict (above) and a moderate one building at Barringer, so we’ll be heading out again next week to hit those again.  (On Bayou Fountain, it took almost a year to settle out.  We expect Ward Creek to settle out faster, but there’s a lot of long logs out there.)

So, after six expeditions, we’ve cleared all the bridges once.  Now, we head back out and hit them again (and again, and again, until they stay clear).  We also got aerial imagery of the slide area just downstream of I-10, and it will take a long day or two to deal with everything embedded there.  But that’s another trip.