Our annual Icicles and Eagles trip on the Kings River is always fun, but this year was even better than usual. The weather was really nice with sunshine and gentle, warm breezes. The river was at a low but adequate level, about 3.5 feet and 280 cfs on the Berryville gage.
The Kings starts in SE Madison County, just across the road from the old post office in Boston and is one of five major streams starting in the immediate area. Around that old post office are also the War Eagle, White, and branches of the Little Mulberry. Headwaters of the Buffalo is just 4 or 5 miles east of Boston.
We began this trip some 38 miles north of Boston when our group rendezvoused at the Junction of Highways 62 and 143 between Eureka Springs and Berryville. JoAnne and I were early, but there were already folks there waiting on us and people kept on coming the whole time we were there. Kris and Billy McMillen from Hot Springs joined us, as did Robert Zamblat from Cabot, Gary Bryant of Glenwood, the Rickards from Ft Smith, 4 or 5 other members of the Ozark Wilderness Waterways Club in Kansas City, Mo and various Missouri cities, a just a bunch of us from Washington, Benton and Carroll counties. At one point several of us counted twenty three boats on the river and I think we had a total of 28 people on this trip.
Normally, we wouldn't try to take a group this big down a river in one bunch, but since the eagles often fly downstream and away from paddlers, we felt the best chance for everyone to see them would be if we stayed pretty tightly grouped. The first problem to be compounded by group size was simply to get all the boats unloaded at the put in and trucks shuttled to the takeout.
Access at the Grandview-143 Bridge can be really easy, if you have a gate key and permission to cross about one quarter mile of private land to circle around and under the bridge. Since we had neither key nor permission to cross the private land, we had to contend with the very narrow shoulders, limited parking space, and the steep trail from the man gate down to the water. The combination hazards of highway traffic and carrying boats down that rough trail made for a stressful beginning, but aside from a couple of slips and bruise on the trial, the boats made it to the water in good enough shape.
Next step was to get as many vehicles to the take out as possible. Those not needed to drive stayed with the boats and gear under the bridge and we departed in two separate groups to meet up at the take out. Stoney Point Access (N36° 27.753' W093° 35.766') is AG&F access via a county gravel road to a large gravel beach. It is only about 4 road miles or so from the Grandview bridge, but is not marked and can be difficult to find. Naturally, we lost a couple of guys along the way. We waited at Stoney Point until it was clear they weren't going to find us and we needed to get back on the main road to reconnect. Sure enough, the wandering lads came back into the fold shortly after we got back on pavement, so we took a couple of extra trucks back up to the Grandview Bridge.
Sometime a little after 11 AM, all 23 boats headed downstream. We had long kayaks, short kayaks, solo canoes and tandem canoes with designated lead and sweep. Our plan was for the lead boat to keep us bunched together and to spot the eagles, we agreed on a spotting signal and to keep noise and paddle waving to a minimum when birds were in sight. We had never organized exactly this way before and were still a little leery of the spooking birds with the lead boats. For the first hour or so, the lead boats saw a few eagles that did stay out ahead of our group enough that the trailing boats didn't see as many. Paddling was easy, the Kings is wide and shallow in this area, and 280 cfs actually moved the pools a little. The gradient is small and the river is generally open. Shirley's log is still in the outside of a bend waiting to grab anyone who doesn't paddle out of the main current, an electric fence extends a few feet out into shallow water at one beach, and at one point a log was all the way across the river, just inches above the surface. The river distance from the bridge to Stoney Point is about 7½ miles by GPS tracking.
Since the group stayed together, we did a lot of visiting. By lunch break, the sun was warming everything and everyone nicely, our leader Don Shreve chose a nice, big gravel bar for our only extended stop on the river. Lots of food came out and was being shared when the first big surprise happened. Champagne corks were popping! Stephen Zisner was passing out cups and pouring champagne for everyone! Really nice touch for lunch, thanks again Stephen.
After lunch, we swapped lead and sweep boats, actually swapped the groups who had been leading and sweeping, so we now had the slowest boats at the front. As we went thru the first ripple, we sighted some eagles in the trees ahead and were able to get everyone together for the approach. I don't recall the details, but from this point on we were only rarely out of sight of eagles.
Most of the birds were mature, bald eagles with brilliant white head and tails with very dark body. Even the immature birds are immense, wing spans seemed greater than the spread of my arms. Bald eagles are beautiful at a distance, up close they are magnificent! We saw as many as 15 to 20 in a group. Several times a bird stayed on it's perch while our 28 people drifted directly under or beside them. When the immature eagles flew very low over us, I could hear the wind noise of his feathers and the creaking of his joints!
Even though the weather was warm, there were a few patches of icicles and snow on the bluffs near where we ate. We reached the Stoney Point take out between 3 and 4 PM, everyone had seen a lot of eagles up close, most had seen the icicles, most had had a taste of Stephen's champagne, and all felt very happy with the trip.
Part of the group went in to Huntsville to eat with plans to camp at Withrow Springs and paddle the War Eagle on Sunday. Seven of us went into Eureka Springs, ate at Devitos, and stayed until they ran us out. What fun!
We gotta do this stuff more often!
Don Shreve and John Hines shot some really nice photos Thank you Don and John!
new 3/3/04