Joe Royer shot this photo of me back in 2003, I think. The Greenbelt Park is covered in a lot more snow than we had here this past weekend. I for one am perfectly happy to have been passed over by Old Man Winter this time around.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Monday photo feature
Joe Royer shot this photo of me back in 2003, I think. The Greenbelt Park is covered in a lot more snow than we had here this past weekend. I for one am perfectly happy to have been passed over by Old Man Winter this time around.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Coping with January
Roscoe Feild's funeral was scheduled for one o'clock on Thursday, so Joe and I got down to the river early to paddle for about 80 minutes. The big news of the day was the approaching snowstorm, and as we paddled we could detect the intensifying wind out of the north.
But Winter Storm Jonas let us off with little more than a dusting. When I woke up Friday morning there was a thin coat of snow and ice on the streets outside, and with a daytime high of about 36 degrees Fahrenheit the streets were completely clear by the end of the day.
So getting down to the river yesterday was no problem at all. But it still was not an especially nice day to paddle. The north wind continued to blow over ten miles per hour, and even though sunshine was predicted the sky was full of clouds at the time of day I was down there. I paddled for 40 minutes, staying in the northern half of the harbor where the wooded banks offer some protection from the wind. I did three 8-stroke sprints and some backpaddling, and otherwise tried to maintain a good strong tempo.
Today was much nicer: plenty of sun with a breeze from the south, and a Fahrenheit temperature that rose from the high 30s into the low 40s while I was down there. The river was the calmest I've seen it in quite a while, and I was tempted to ferry over to the Arkansas side and check out the drainage channel from Dacus Lake, which should be flowing heartily now that the river has dropped some 20 feet in the last couple of weeks. But on these winter days I try to stick a little closer to civilization in the interest of safety, and I resisted the impulse and paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf River instead.
I pushed the pace pretty hard up there, and my elapsed time from leaving the dock to arriving at the Wolf was about 47 minutes. I think the fastest I've ever done it is a bit under 45 minutes, but anything under 50 isn't bad. Wearing the same outfit I'd worn in colder temperatures all last week, I had worked up a major sweat by the time I got up there, paddling in the bright sunshine with the wind at my back. Even though I'd had my normal consumption of water since getting out of bed this morning, I felt a bit dehydrated. So I eased up on the intensity going back down to the harbor and up to the marina.
But Winter Storm Jonas let us off with little more than a dusting. When I woke up Friday morning there was a thin coat of snow and ice on the streets outside, and with a daytime high of about 36 degrees Fahrenheit the streets were completely clear by the end of the day.
So getting down to the river yesterday was no problem at all. But it still was not an especially nice day to paddle. The north wind continued to blow over ten miles per hour, and even though sunshine was predicted the sky was full of clouds at the time of day I was down there. I paddled for 40 minutes, staying in the northern half of the harbor where the wooded banks offer some protection from the wind. I did three 8-stroke sprints and some backpaddling, and otherwise tried to maintain a good strong tempo.
Today was much nicer: plenty of sun with a breeze from the south, and a Fahrenheit temperature that rose from the high 30s into the low 40s while I was down there. The river was the calmest I've seen it in quite a while, and I was tempted to ferry over to the Arkansas side and check out the drainage channel from Dacus Lake, which should be flowing heartily now that the river has dropped some 20 feet in the last couple of weeks. But on these winter days I try to stick a little closer to civilization in the interest of safety, and I resisted the impulse and paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf River instead.
I pushed the pace pretty hard up there, and my elapsed time from leaving the dock to arriving at the Wolf was about 47 minutes. I think the fastest I've ever done it is a bit under 45 minutes, but anything under 50 isn't bad. Wearing the same outfit I'd worn in colder temperatures all last week, I had worked up a major sweat by the time I got up there, paddling in the bright sunshine with the wind at my back. Even though I'd had my normal consumption of water since getting out of bed this morning, I felt a bit dehydrated. So I eased up on the intensity going back down to the harbor and up to the marina.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
In memoriam
When somebody asks me how long I've been paddling, I usually reply that I started in 1981 as a 13-year-old summer camper. The camp I attended in western North Carolina had a good-quality canoeing program that took us on beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain streams, and I became fascinated with the idea that I could move the boat anywhere I wanted with a simple repertoire of strokes in combination with the river's currents.
But it wouldn't really be wrong to trace my paddling history back some ten years earlier than that. During my childhood my family took trips to Hardy, Arkansas, as guests of my parents' close friends Roscoe and Jane Feild, who owned a cabin on Wahpeton Hill overlooking the Spring River just across from the town. In my first decade on this Earth there was no place more magical than Hardy. The Frisco Railroad ran right through town, and at that age I loved trains (I still do, for that matter). Traveling between the cabin and the town involved crossing a rusty old one-lane steel bridge that we kids thought would topple into the river at any moment (it finally did topple during a flood in December of 1980). Wahpeton Hill, part of the Ozark Foothills, had many of the features of a sure-enough mountain, my favorite being a craggy outcropping a short walk from the cabin that offered a lovely view of the river.
And then there was the river and the canoe.
The Spring River has long been a popular summertime getaway for residents of the greater Memphis area... perhaps too popular. Several canoe liveries put their customers on a section a few miles upstream of Hardy, and all manner of unruly behavior is common on the busiest summer weekends. Down at Hardy, in the shadow of Wahpeton Hill, the river is a quieter, more family-friendly place, and it was there that our two families swam in the cool spring-fed water and soaked up the sun on a floating dock. The canoeing we did usually involved the little kids like me sitting in the middle of the Feilds' aluminum Grumman while the grownups did the paddling. About a mile upriver there was a little shoals where my sister and I and the Feild children loved to swim and wade, and the canoe was the vehicle that got us there.
One of my favorite stories concerning the elite athletes I know is that of siblings Davey and Cathy Hearn, both of whom were world champions and Olympians in careers that started in the 70s and lasted until the early 00s. Canoeing was part of their lives when the two were little, but it was the same kind of unstructured play that I engaged in at Hardy. They didn't give much thought to serious racing until one summer day in 1972, when the news came on the radio that a member of their DC-area canoe club, Jamie McEwan, had taken the bronze medal in whitewater slalom canoe at the Olympic Games in Germany. Suddenly, their heads were alive with thoughts like, "We're just like Jamie. We paddle in the same canoe club, and run the same rivers he's run. Why couldn't we go and race in the Olympics, just like he's done?"
I didn't have a role model of Jamie McEwan's stature, and I've certainly never achieved the heights in the sport that Cathy and Davey have. Fortunately, you don't have to be as good as they to share in the joy of paddling, and my transition from the little kid playing around on the Spring River to an adolescent and adult plying the craft with much greater skill was not really that much different from theirs. Once I was a bit older and had shipped off to camp for the summer, I was able to look at the canoes on the lake there and believe I belonged in one. Soon enough I saw the canoeing staff counselors, several of whom were quite accomplished as paddlers, as the coolest guys in camp and just the role models I needed.
Roscoe was not a great paddler, or even a good paddler, for that matter. But when my age was measured in single digits, I didn't need a guru. I just needed somebody to put me in a boat and let my imagination do the rest. Roscoe and Jane and my parents probably never gave much thought to whether I would go on embrace paddlesports as a lifelong passion; they were simply doing what all people should do for the children in their lives, and providing me with an activity to pass the time on those long hot summer days.
Roscoe Feild passed away at the age of 84 this past Sunday. You can view his obituary in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis here. I humbly pay tribute to the man here for the role he played in making me a paddler.
But it wouldn't really be wrong to trace my paddling history back some ten years earlier than that. During my childhood my family took trips to Hardy, Arkansas, as guests of my parents' close friends Roscoe and Jane Feild, who owned a cabin on Wahpeton Hill overlooking the Spring River just across from the town. In my first decade on this Earth there was no place more magical than Hardy. The Frisco Railroad ran right through town, and at that age I loved trains (I still do, for that matter). Traveling between the cabin and the town involved crossing a rusty old one-lane steel bridge that we kids thought would topple into the river at any moment (it finally did topple during a flood in December of 1980). Wahpeton Hill, part of the Ozark Foothills, had many of the features of a sure-enough mountain, my favorite being a craggy outcropping a short walk from the cabin that offered a lovely view of the river.
And then there was the river and the canoe.
The Spring River has long been a popular summertime getaway for residents of the greater Memphis area... perhaps too popular. Several canoe liveries put their customers on a section a few miles upstream of Hardy, and all manner of unruly behavior is common on the busiest summer weekends. Down at Hardy, in the shadow of Wahpeton Hill, the river is a quieter, more family-friendly place, and it was there that our two families swam in the cool spring-fed water and soaked up the sun on a floating dock. The canoeing we did usually involved the little kids like me sitting in the middle of the Feilds' aluminum Grumman while the grownups did the paddling. About a mile upriver there was a little shoals where my sister and I and the Feild children loved to swim and wade, and the canoe was the vehicle that got us there.
One of my favorite stories concerning the elite athletes I know is that of siblings Davey and Cathy Hearn, both of whom were world champions and Olympians in careers that started in the 70s and lasted until the early 00s. Canoeing was part of their lives when the two were little, but it was the same kind of unstructured play that I engaged in at Hardy. They didn't give much thought to serious racing until one summer day in 1972, when the news came on the radio that a member of their DC-area canoe club, Jamie McEwan, had taken the bronze medal in whitewater slalom canoe at the Olympic Games in Germany. Suddenly, their heads were alive with thoughts like, "We're just like Jamie. We paddle in the same canoe club, and run the same rivers he's run. Why couldn't we go and race in the Olympics, just like he's done?"
I didn't have a role model of Jamie McEwan's stature, and I've certainly never achieved the heights in the sport that Cathy and Davey have. Fortunately, you don't have to be as good as they to share in the joy of paddling, and my transition from the little kid playing around on the Spring River to an adolescent and adult plying the craft with much greater skill was not really that much different from theirs. Once I was a bit older and had shipped off to camp for the summer, I was able to look at the canoes on the lake there and believe I belonged in one. Soon enough I saw the canoeing staff counselors, several of whom were quite accomplished as paddlers, as the coolest guys in camp and just the role models I needed.
Roscoe was not a great paddler, or even a good paddler, for that matter. But when my age was measured in single digits, I didn't need a guru. I just needed somebody to put me in a boat and let my imagination do the rest. Roscoe and Jane and my parents probably never gave much thought to whether I would go on embrace paddlesports as a lifelong passion; they were simply doing what all people should do for the children in their lives, and providing me with an activity to pass the time on those long hot summer days.
Roscoe Feild passed away at the age of 84 this past Sunday. You can view his obituary in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis here. I humbly pay tribute to the man here for the role he played in making me a paddler.
Manning the stern, Roscoe Feild guides the canoe alongside the dock with a not-half-bad rudder stroke. His wife Jane sits in front of him, with their son John (in the orange life vest) and me in the middle. My older sister paddles in the bow.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Froze thru & thru
Just in case I hadn't been yearning adequately for my trip to Hawaii, some more January-like weather has moved in this week. The last several days have been windy and overcast, and the temperature failed to exceed the freezing point Monday and yesterday. It would have been very easy for me to skip paddling yesterday if I hadn't agreed to meet Joe down at the river, and I wouldn't be surprised if Joe was having similar thoughts. But we had made a pact, so out into the cold we went.
Training in the wintertime is actually not so bad once you're in the boat paddling. Standing on the dock changing clothes and readying your boat and gear is what hurts the worst. We took care of those ancillary chores as fast as we could, and then hit the water for a 75-minute session that was reasonably comfortable aside from my chilled feet. All my sit-inside boats are stored here at home; I suppose I could take one down to the dock for winter paddling, but, well... winter doesn't last that long here.
After paddling I came home, lit a fire in my workshop wood stove, and spent the rest of the day trying to warm back up.
Training in the wintertime is actually not so bad once you're in the boat paddling. Standing on the dock changing clothes and readying your boat and gear is what hurts the worst. We took care of those ancillary chores as fast as we could, and then hit the water for a 75-minute session that was reasonably comfortable aside from my chilled feet. All my sit-inside boats are stored here at home; I suppose I could take one down to the dock for winter paddling, but, well... winter doesn't last that long here.
After paddling I came home, lit a fire in my workshop wood stove, and spent the rest of the day trying to warm back up.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Monday photo feature
Today's forecast for Memphis, Tennessee, calls for a high temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. That's an even zero on the Celsius thermometer. Seems like a good time to look ahead to my Hawaii trip, which is now less than a month away.
Pictured here is Zsolt Szadovszki, the top surf ski racer in Hawaii. Zsolt is a former flatwater sprint racer for the Hungarian national team, a top program in international competition for decades. Now living in Honolulu, he's the regional distributer for Epic Kayaks and is kindly arranging a rental boat for me when I'm there next month. Photo by Barbara Yendell.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Some pain and some drama to spice up the routine
I've spent the week doing my usual thing in and out of the boat.
I paddled for 60 minutes on Tuesday, Thursday, yesterday, and today. I was starting to feel lethargic in the boat, and I addressed that by doing three 8-stroke sprints at the beginning of each session. My sprinting technique was rusty, but each time out I felt a little bit sharper and more enthusiastic about what I was doing.
I'm also still doing the January strength routine three times a week. Strength work has always been my least favorite part of training, but I'm feeling pretty good about how this month's routine is going. Each time I stretch and warm up thoroughly, and then move quickly from one exercise to the next. I certainly hope this work will enhance my performance in the boat, but I also it helps my general fitness as I inch ever closer to the golden anniversary of my birth. All over town I notice older people, and occasionally even people my age, struggling mightily with everyday movements that I take for granted: climbing stairs or moderate inclines, standing up and sitting down, lifting objects and moving them around... stuff like that. A big goal of mine for the later stages of my life is to continue to do these basic things comfortably, and I think moving my body every day is the key ("use it or lose it," in other words).
For a couple of weeks I've had some fairly intense soreness in my lower back and all around my hip area. I've addressed it with some stretching exercises as well as some sessions of backpaddling in the boat to work opposing muscles. The condition has finally eased up a bit just in the last couple of days.
More worrisome is something that doesn't affect my paddling but definitely affects my overall quality of life: my right foot has been aching right in the arch area for a couple of months, and it seems to be getting worse. So far I've just been living with it, hoping it'll get better, but if this keeps up I might have to give in and see a doctor.
Meanwhile, our sport got a bit of unwanted media attention on Friday. For me, it started in the late morning when a friend called me on the telephone and asked me if I was okay.
"I think so," I replied. "Should I not be?"
It turned out that somebody in an office building overlooking the river downtown had reported an "overturned kayaker," and several emergency response agencies were searching all up and down the riverfront for the hapless victim. All the local TV news outlets, hungry for something sensational, were on the scene covering the brouhaha for their noon broadcasts, and there was also a story on the website of our daily newspaper, The Commercial Appeal. That latter story said something about a "white two-person kayak," and I happen to have a friend with just such a boat, so now I was a bit concerned as I left that friend a voice-mail message to call me back.
A short while later my friend did call me back, and explained that the whole affair was nothing more than a false alarm. He was in fact on the river in his white tandem boat with a friend of his, and for some reason the person up in the office building got the impression that they were in distress even though they were nothing of the sort. A police harbor patrol boat met them as they returned to the harbor from the main river, and once they had reassured the cops that they were fine, they retired to the marina. By late afternoon the story had disappeared from The Commercial Appeal's website, and the TV stations mentioned nothing about it in their six o'clock newscasts.
I have no idea what the person up in the office building thought he saw, and I don't want to sneer at a concerned citizen who was trying to do the right thing. But the incident provides an example of how our general population views the Mississippi River and the idea of getting out on it in a human-powered craft.
I paddled for 60 minutes on Tuesday, Thursday, yesterday, and today. I was starting to feel lethargic in the boat, and I addressed that by doing three 8-stroke sprints at the beginning of each session. My sprinting technique was rusty, but each time out I felt a little bit sharper and more enthusiastic about what I was doing.
I'm also still doing the January strength routine three times a week. Strength work has always been my least favorite part of training, but I'm feeling pretty good about how this month's routine is going. Each time I stretch and warm up thoroughly, and then move quickly from one exercise to the next. I certainly hope this work will enhance my performance in the boat, but I also it helps my general fitness as I inch ever closer to the golden anniversary of my birth. All over town I notice older people, and occasionally even people my age, struggling mightily with everyday movements that I take for granted: climbing stairs or moderate inclines, standing up and sitting down, lifting objects and moving them around... stuff like that. A big goal of mine for the later stages of my life is to continue to do these basic things comfortably, and I think moving my body every day is the key ("use it or lose it," in other words).
For a couple of weeks I've had some fairly intense soreness in my lower back and all around my hip area. I've addressed it with some stretching exercises as well as some sessions of backpaddling in the boat to work opposing muscles. The condition has finally eased up a bit just in the last couple of days.
More worrisome is something that doesn't affect my paddling but definitely affects my overall quality of life: my right foot has been aching right in the arch area for a couple of months, and it seems to be getting worse. So far I've just been living with it, hoping it'll get better, but if this keeps up I might have to give in and see a doctor.
Meanwhile, our sport got a bit of unwanted media attention on Friday. For me, it started in the late morning when a friend called me on the telephone and asked me if I was okay.
"I think so," I replied. "Should I not be?"
It turned out that somebody in an office building overlooking the river downtown had reported an "overturned kayaker," and several emergency response agencies were searching all up and down the riverfront for the hapless victim. All the local TV news outlets, hungry for something sensational, were on the scene covering the brouhaha for their noon broadcasts, and there was also a story on the website of our daily newspaper, The Commercial Appeal. That latter story said something about a "white two-person kayak," and I happen to have a friend with just such a boat, so now I was a bit concerned as I left that friend a voice-mail message to call me back.
A short while later my friend did call me back, and explained that the whole affair was nothing more than a false alarm. He was in fact on the river in his white tandem boat with a friend of his, and for some reason the person up in the office building got the impression that they were in distress even though they were nothing of the sort. A police harbor patrol boat met them as they returned to the harbor from the main river, and once they had reassured the cops that they were fine, they retired to the marina. By late afternoon the story had disappeared from The Commercial Appeal's website, and the TV stations mentioned nothing about it in their six o'clock newscasts.
I have no idea what the person up in the office building thought he saw, and I don't want to sneer at a concerned citizen who was trying to do the right thing. But the incident provides an example of how our general population views the Mississippi River and the idea of getting out on it in a human-powered craft.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Monday photo feature
As the Mississippi River at Memphis begins to recede, I share here a striking contrast between low water and high water.
The railroad trestle pictured here crosses the Wolf River about two miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. I took the top photo on May 5, 2012, on which day the Mississippi was at 8.2 feet on the Memphis gauge; much lower and it would have been difficult to paddle this far up the Wolf because of shallow water.
I took the second photo yesterday, when the Memphis gauge reading was 39.4 feet. At least in rough terms, a foot on the Memphis gauge corresponds to a vertical foot of elevation of the river's surface throughout this region, so it's fairly safe to say that the water is some 30 feet higher in the second photo than in the first.
I'll just add that during the 2011 flood, when the river rose just over 48 feet on the Memphis gauge, the water was up to the top of the rails on the train tracks. I took a couple of pictures back then, but sadly I can't find them anywhere.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Fun (sort of) in the wildwater boat
Today I felt like doing something different, so I did something different.
I got my wildwater boat down from where it's been stored up under the deck behind my place, put it on the car, and drove to the mouth of the Wolf River. Then I paddled some four miles or so up the Wolf and back.
Yesterday's rain had given way to a blast of cold air; when I arrived at the river the display in my car's dashboard said it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. An icy wind was blowing out of the northwest, and I was glad to be sitting down inside the wildwater boat rather than sitting on top of a surf ski. On the other hand, the wind made the rudderless boat difficult to steer, and I grimaced as I leaned the boat left and right with my sore hips and lower back.
In any case, putting in at the mouth of the Wolf gave me a chance to explore a good bit of its flooded lower miles without having to paddle all the way up the Mississippi from the marina. With the Mississippi registering 39.4 feet, the Wolf was flooded well beyond the section I managed to paddle (I made it as far up as the Watkins Street bridge before turning around).
I got my wildwater boat down from where it's been stored up under the deck behind my place, put it on the car, and drove to the mouth of the Wolf River. Then I paddled some four miles or so up the Wolf and back.
Yesterday's rain had given way to a blast of cold air; when I arrived at the river the display in my car's dashboard said it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. An icy wind was blowing out of the northwest, and I was glad to be sitting down inside the wildwater boat rather than sitting on top of a surf ski. On the other hand, the wind made the rudderless boat difficult to steer, and I grimaced as I leaned the boat left and right with my sore hips and lower back.
In any case, putting in at the mouth of the Wolf gave me a chance to explore a good bit of its flooded lower miles without having to paddle all the way up the Mississippi from the marina. With the Mississippi registering 39.4 feet, the Wolf was flooded well beyond the section I managed to paddle (I made it as far up as the Watkins Street bridge before turning around).
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Those lovely gray skies
The Mississippi crested yesterday at 39.59 feet on the Memphis gauge. That huge mass of water that fell as rain two weeks ago is now moving on downriver and causing high-water events at places like Greeneville, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. The river here will be dropping slowly for a few days, then more rapidly after that. When I got down there this morning the level was about 39.5. I suppose I could keep on posting pictures here, but surely by now everybody gets the idea. If you want to know what the marina area looks like as the river drops, just look at the photos I've posted here in reverse order.
My midsection continues to be quite sore, and I've been doing all the stretches and warmup exercises I know of to bring about improvement. Today I did another relatively easy session, spending 40 minutes in the boat.
It was a rainy day here in the Mid South, with intermittent showers, some of them quite heavy, moving through. One semi-heavy shower fell on me while I was paddling, but it didn't last long. I'll repeat something I've noted in the past: some of the most beautiful moments I've spent on the river have occurred on rainy days. Today the sky was full of billowing clouds in many shades of gray, with an occasional ray of sunshine peeking through, and I felt fortunate to witness it all. It's easy to get outside on warm sunny days, but it can be surprisingly rewarding to get oneself out on the supposedly not-so-nice days.
My midsection continues to be quite sore, and I've been doing all the stretches and warmup exercises I know of to bring about improvement. Today I did another relatively easy session, spending 40 minutes in the boat.
It was a rainy day here in the Mid South, with intermittent showers, some of them quite heavy, moving through. One semi-heavy shower fell on me while I was paddling, but it didn't last long. I'll repeat something I've noted in the past: some of the most beautiful moments I've spent on the river have occurred on rainy days. Today the sky was full of billowing clouds in many shades of gray, with an occasional ray of sunshine peeking through, and I felt fortunate to witness it all. It's easy to get outside on warm sunny days, but it can be surprisingly rewarding to get oneself out on the supposedly not-so-nice days.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
It'll be cresting soon
The Mississippi River level this morning was 39.3 feet on the Memphis gauge--just 1.2 feet higher than Tuesday's level. The rise is slowing down, and the level might not even hit 40 feet. I don't think I'll be parking my car much higher up the hill than this:
The prevailing wind had shifted to the southeast, blowing more garbage to the water's edge on this side of the harbor. Here's how it looked from the marina today:
I've been feeling quite sore in my lower back and hip area this week, and I have a feeling it's partly because I've ramped up my paddling volume a bit out of a desire to get out there and check out the high water. So today I took it easier, paddling for just 60 minutes and staying in the harbor except for a brief jaunt out onto the river at the harbor's mouth.
The prevailing wind had shifted to the southeast, blowing more garbage to the water's edge on this side of the harbor. Here's how it looked from the marina today:
I've been feeling quite sore in my lower back and hip area this week, and I have a feeling it's partly because I've ramped up my paddling volume a bit out of a desire to get out there and check out the high water. So today I took it easier, paddling for just 60 minutes and staying in the harbor except for a brief jaunt out onto the river at the harbor's mouth.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
"38 Feet High and Risin'"
Back to the river I went this morning to see how Great Flood 2016 is coming along. I drove my truck today because I had to run an errand along the way that involved moving something. Even the mightiest truck must defer to the whims of the mighty Mississippi River:
What we see here is a water level that measured 38.1 feet on the Memphis gauge. Forecasters are predicting a crest of 40.5 feet this Friday, so the water should rise only a couple of feet higher than this. I believe this particular apocalypse will be more heckish than hellish. Here's the view from that spot on the marina:
Once in the boat I paddled for 90 minutes, heading out of the harbor and upriver, through the flooded Greenbelt Park, and a half mile or so up the Wolf River before turning around and coming back. It was another nice January day, though not quite as lovely as Sunday was: a breeze from the east was putting quite a chill on things. But it was still not bad for the dead of winter.
What we see here is a water level that measured 38.1 feet on the Memphis gauge. Forecasters are predicting a crest of 40.5 feet this Friday, so the water should rise only a couple of feet higher than this. I believe this particular apocalypse will be more heckish than hellish. Here's the view from that spot on the marina:
Once in the boat I paddled for 90 minutes, heading out of the harbor and upriver, through the flooded Greenbelt Park, and a half mile or so up the Wolf River before turning around and coming back. It was another nice January day, though not quite as lovely as Sunday was: a breeze from the east was putting quite a chill on things. But it was still not bad for the dead of winter.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Monday photo feature
It sort of looks like Jesus Christ left His truck parked on the Memphis riverfront back in May of 2011. I took this photo as the water was approaching its crest level of 48.03 feet on the Memphis gauge that month. The highest level we see in most years is lower than 40 feet, and this landscape, a parking lot on Mud Island just south of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, is high and dry.
Right now we're watching the river rise again, with the current forecast calling for a crest of 41 feet at the end of this week. You won't have to be the Messiah to park here at that level.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Where'd that guard rail go?
I went down to the riverfront this morning and found a level of 35.1 feet on the Memphis gauge--five feet higher than what it was on Thursday when I last went down there. I had to park my car higher up the hill today:
Here's the view from that same spot on the marina pier:
The National Weather Service continues to revise its forecast downward. The latest I've heard is that they're predicting a crest of 41 feet (a foot lower than before) on January 8 (a day sooner than before). As fun as it is to take these pictures of high water, I consider that good news. Hopefully we can get by with just a small fraction of the damage the Saint Louis area experienced. I also hope we can avoid the national media circus that we saw during the big flood of 2011, when the river rose to 48.03 feet on the Memphis gauge.
The yellow building in the second photo is the Maria Montessori School, and it was the site of one of the more absurd moments on the national news in 2011. The little amphitheater that you can see at the right side of the photo was completely under water, and an NBC reporter decided to don chest waders and appear on camera while standing on a step of the amphitheater with water up to his chest. The resulting footage earned the derision of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show: "The water is NIPPLE HIGH, ladies and gentlemen!"
On a more important note, I had a good paddle in absolutely gorgeous weather. The sun shone, and the Fahrenheit temperature was in the mid to high 40s with only a light breeze... an ideal January day. I paddled for 80 minutes, going out onto the river and up the inundated Greenbelt Park. I paddled a pretty strong pace with several long surges. As I paddled back to the dock I ran into my friend Joe on his way out, and I was glad not to be the only one enjoying this lovely paddling weather.
Here's the view from that same spot on the marina pier:
The National Weather Service continues to revise its forecast downward. The latest I've heard is that they're predicting a crest of 41 feet (a foot lower than before) on January 8 (a day sooner than before). As fun as it is to take these pictures of high water, I consider that good news. Hopefully we can get by with just a small fraction of the damage the Saint Louis area experienced. I also hope we can avoid the national media circus that we saw during the big flood of 2011, when the river rose to 48.03 feet on the Memphis gauge.
The yellow building in the second photo is the Maria Montessori School, and it was the site of one of the more absurd moments on the national news in 2011. The little amphitheater that you can see at the right side of the photo was completely under water, and an NBC reporter decided to don chest waders and appear on camera while standing on a step of the amphitheater with water up to his chest. The resulting footage earned the derision of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show: "The water is NIPPLE HIGH, ladies and gentlemen!"
On a more important note, I had a good paddle in absolutely gorgeous weather. The sun shone, and the Fahrenheit temperature was in the mid to high 40s with only a light breeze... an ideal January day. I paddled for 80 minutes, going out onto the river and up the inundated Greenbelt Park. I paddled a pretty strong pace with several long surges. As I paddled back to the dock I ran into my friend Joe on his way out, and I was glad not to be the only one enjoying this lovely paddling weather.
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