Greenville Creek
April 22,23, 2006
Saturday dawned clear and warm. As the sun's rays where warming the earth, in pulls Lance. Then Will B. showed up. Haven't seen Will since last years Auglaize trip. Rounding out the party was Harold and Laurie, who arrived at 3 minutes AFTER 9:00a.m. Must have been because of the new Garmin Legend C color gps he bought Now we are a party of 8. After shuttling vehicles down to Croft Mill Rd. the trip commenced at 11:00a.m.
Since Tony wasn't on the shuttle, he started out fishing
an hour before the rest of the group started paddling. He might as well saved
his casting arm as the fish weren't even nibbling. Everyone else caught up with
him before the Creek even left the Greenville city limits. The water was pretty
clear and the level was great for paddling. Not one logjam greeted our club in
the 17.6 miles we canoed, which only took 5 hours and 25 minutes. Lunch was
again at the Bear's Mill, a working gist mill. After lunch, Lance, Tony and Will
went geocaching to a site that is at the Mill. They found it in good time and it
was Lance's first ever geocache. Check out
http://www.geocaching.com for more information on this wonderful game. We
saw lots of ducks, squirrels, groundhogs, herons, hawks and those damn geese.
Lots of goose nests with young. The spring river birds were darting back and
forth making for lots of colors in the landscape. We only saw one other boat on
the Creek all day and it was a tandem, inflatable kayak with a guy and gal just
floating along. After reaching the take out spot, we headed back to camp for
some great grub.
The potluck consisted of hamburgers, french fries, jambalaya, chili, asparagus
and noodles with wine sauce (don't ask) and apple pie. While finishing up this
great supper along comes a big wind gust and rain. Luckily it only lasted around
10 minutes and was over but it left us with a beautiful rainbow. We only had a
few off and on again sprinkles the rest of the night. We sat around and talked
about everything under the sun (and clouds) and laughed until time to crash for
the night.
Sunday was a little cooler but sunny. Ted and Connie had to head home but not
until shuttling the rest of us up to Coletown for a 6 mile paddle back to camp.
Last year we canoed this section but it was in flood stage. It looked so
different and the logjams were everywhere. 6 jams in 6 miles. What a pain in the
paddle!! The first one we came to Paul tried to use his saw to cut an opening
for us. While shimmering up a log he slipped, right back into the water. Talk
about exercise, it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to do those 6 miles. There is
also a motor cross track next to the river and they were having a race. We could
hear their little engines and when we got near we saw little kids on those
bikes. Then the big daddies started and it was loud. Time to get downstream.
Our first year on this Creek it was beautiful on Saturday for the lower section but rained us out on Sunday. Last year we woke to snow on Saturday and canoed the flooded upper stretch but canceled Sunday. This year, 3rd times a charm, everything worked out great. Let's hope the rest of 2006 is as good to us as our April trip was. Until May 5th and the Little Beaver Creek Trip...
See ya on the water!!
