This is where our kayak trip started on the last Friday in August, 2004. Well... this is my first picture on the water but a kayaking adventure begins with planning. Dean will consult with the weather service and check the online stream gauges and Bryce will do the same thing and compare the levels against records of his own experiences on Indiana Streams over the past 30 or 40 years. They decide that Big Raccoon - Mansfield to Bridgeton - is "do-able" at two point six.
Dean will take a day off from work and pick me up at my house if it isn't raining. It has been raining off and on for a few days earlier in the week and the weird, cool, dry Indiana August seems to be ending; replaced with what we expect here in this season, muggy. I note the 71 degree dew point and wonder how I'll know if it is raining or not in the morning but I set the alarm (or rather have my wife set it for me because I have forgotten how to use one since I retired more than a year ago).
When I awake and until Dean arrives, it looks like it will rain any moment. The last weather report I watched compared the atmosphere above the region to a pot of water about before it boils in that a few small bubbles might come to the surface here and there. It's not raining right here and now so we load and go. Bryce meets us at the take-out spot at Bridgeton and we leave his car there, load and go.
Here's what it looks like while we unload before we start down stream from Mansfield Mill under the covered bridge.
This section of Big Raccoon creek is not famous or well traveled but it is extraordinarily beautiful. The water released from Mansfield dam is cool and clear but the recent rains did not raise its level but added color so that, under the trees and cloudy sky, the water seemed green. Olive green. The left bank is sometimes a 50 foot high bluff and the trees on both sides of the water are huge old growth trees. There is a gentle drop between Mansfield and Bridgeton and the water released between the mills has current but it is mostly slow. Slower than most streams I've seen this year.
Around each bend when a straight section would unfold for us and we could see the stream and its surrounds stretch out toward the next, each room, - Bryce said it - reminded him of the rooms that open up after passages in a cave. Each new view was filled with unique beauty. Some had high arching Sycamores, some had rocky walls with trees above, some allowed the sun to peek through, and some were canopied. All the creeks I've seen from water level are tree lined but the trees seem taller and the trunks thicker on the Big Raccoon, the canopy is elevated and arched to resemble a cathedral at times and our path was down the center aisle.
In the slow current, I am a little more able to handle the kayak than usual, I have time to point the nose of the kayak where I want it by back stroking and then paddle easy between hazards. It makes me, a rookie, look almost as accomplished as my friends who have been doing this most of their lives. On one S curve, I could see that the last U was likely to take me into a collection of captured tree limbs on the bank so I beached myself and walked. Another time I snapped on my wheels and rolled over a sandbar rather than navigate a tricky hazard. But most of the time, I matched Bryce and Dean, climbing off and leading the kayak no more and sliding an empty kayak under no more downed trees than they.
The daring maneuver that skirts the dam where water falls over the lip put us on an island under the covered bridge. It looks more dangerous than it is, however, if you went wild, passed out, or dozed off, you could have a steep fall onto hard rocks. High stakes; low probability. Our take-outs work like this: the pickup car driver, whose car is at the take-out, and the driver of the put-in vehicle land their kayaks and the remaining kayaker watches them while the drivers return with both cars. I'm usually the remaining kayaker and I use the driver's travel time to rest, nap, or land my kayak at my pace.
