Buffalo River memories

Dr. Neil Compton, through the 1960s fought to save the Buffalo River from dam-nation, as planned dams in Searcy County would have turned the river into a lake.  Thankfully, his efforts were not in vain.  Some of my best memories were created along the river throughout my lifetime.  I have certainly received the benefits of Compton's struggle to save the crown jewel river of Arkansas which attracts paddlers from throughout the Midwest and the world.  I know for a fact that one Dutch citizen has paddled the river, since I paddled tandem on a church trip with an exchange student (Raymond Frenken) from Central H.S. in W. Helena in the 1980s.  Certainly, more folks from around the world have ventured to our state to enjoy nature at its best in that river valley.

When I lived in W. Helena, my family and my church took several trips to the lower section, usually taking out at Rush Landing, a ghost-town from mining days the National River protects.  I enjoyed all the trips in those days and I was eager to see more.  At this point in my life, the only section of the Buffalo I haven't paddled is the prettiest and most remote below Boxley, the Mt. Hersey to Gilbert section.  The most remote section of the Buffalo is actually referred to as Hailstone River, beginning at the confluence of Reeves Fork and Big Buffalo Creek near Fallsville, near the intersection of Highway 16 and Highway 21 in southern Newton County.  The beginning of the Buffalo is a beautiful section to experience.  It is approximately a 15 to 20 mile stretch in some wild water and some unseen dangers, like a cave that opens on river left at a hairy drop.  One of our flotilla corkscrewed his boat at the drop and exited the cockpit, but he and his boat veered away from the hazard.  Several fellows were awaiting other paddlers with rescue ropes at the ready, so those folks were certainly thinking of our crew.  He didn't need a rescue that time.  It was a long section that is difficult to catch at optimal level, so I'm fortunate to have had the opportunity to paddle that day.  Our trip ended in the willows near Boxley where one of our crew who was in an inflatable kayak popped a hole in it and lost his boat.  When I spotted him, he was hanging on to a tree in the rushing water.  He climbed out and walked to the road through a pasture.  If he'd lost his boat farther up river, he would have needed to climb a rock wall to get out.  He was lucky. 

Most of my trips have originated at Ponca low-water bridge.  It is a pretty section and offers hiking and horseback trails I have hiked in the past.  I had to stop for a black bear while driving to the Centerpoint trailhead before my wife and I hiked.  We didn't see him on the trail fortunately. I've hiked many of the trails like Cecil Cove Loop, the Buffalo River Trail, Hemmed-In Hollow Trails (including Goat Bluff--a gorgeous trail that challenges those afraid of heights on some bluff-hugging bottlenecks), and Lost Valley (not actually along the river, but near Ponca).  My first love is the water, however, so most of my experiences are in the river.  I have fished the river from Boxley to Carver and at the confluence of the White River and the Buffalo at Buffalo City.

The most memorable trip I've ever experienced was a three day paddle and camp trip from Ponca to Carver.  Our first night along the river was spent at Kyle's Landing right on the river and suffered through rain and lightning through the night.  We kept a close eye on the river level, so not a lot of sleep that night.  At our campsite, glow-in-the-dark wood chips lit the trail from the river to the main campsite.  I was told a fungus rendered the wood chips so easily visible in darkness, but I never checked the fellow's account.  At Ozark Landing the next evening, we spent the evening trading stories with some campers employed as state parole officers. The group were unwinding along the river including a native Canadian who loved the scenery of northern Arkansas and relocated to Ft. Smith.  Luckily, we were out early enough each morning and avoided most of the novice paddlers who pack the river and clog the rapids with overturned canoes. 

Buffalo River was a good fishing site years ago.  The last time I fished there, runoff from logging operations muddied the waters and I haven't been back to fish.  I camped with an acquaintance on a sandy shoal on the Ponca to Kyle's stretch and found a hole that hid me with a giant boulder stuck in the river from a flood and I was up to my chest in water and caught one smallmouth bass after another.  The next time I fished that spot, the boulder had been pushed down river or to the bottom of the pool.  I love to catch smallmouth and have caught my share in the the Buffalo and in the East and Middle Forks of the upper White River over the years and the next catch is always a thrill.  Near Buffalo City, trout can be caught, where the Buffalo meets the cold waters of the White River. 

My favorite time of year on the Buffalo is winter.  The leaves are off and the scenery of the mountains is uncovered.  Hiking in winter is always fun. Most of my paddle trips over the years are in winter, because that's when the water levels are optimal.  The only bummer to me is the Buffalo can be closed from Ponca down river by the rangers.  The day I paddled the Hailstone section, the water level was just flowing over the bridge at Ponca.  They don't close the Hailstone section in high water fortunately.  Through the years, my favorite whitewater river has been the Mulberry River in Johnson and Franklin Counties, but for the scenery and the access to trails and the river,  the Buffalo is a true gem.  It isn't the most challenging river in the Ozarks, so I recommend the river for practically any skill level.  Ponca is a bit much for most casual paddlers and they should expect to flip at places like Gray Rock (where "traffic" jams of overturned boats is the biggest hazard for are casual paddlers there in droves.  People were upsetting on riffles where no one expects overturned boats.  A boy in an OU cap flipped just in front as I was trying to pass him before the next rapid, which required some staging, but he didn't make it through the "kiddie riffle" unscathed. Too much fun at his expense. I retrieved one of his lost possessions and handed it back to him.  Another fellow flipped farther down river and an acquaintance retrieved and returned his cooler and floppy hat, but not the contents which fell out of the cooler.  We had replenished our cooler stockpile, which was getting dangerously low.   My wife and I camped at Buffalo Point shortly before I began dating her and we spent our honeymoon at a resort at Ponca and hiked to the Hemmed-In Hollow waterfall, so the Buffalo valley is special to us.  It was nice and chilly that day for the 5+ mile round trip.  My first hike to the waterfall was in the dog days of August and the uphill climb out was sweltering, but water was flowing despite the drought. 

Kayaking has afforded opportunities to see some of the most beautiful sites of the Ozarks.  I've paddled Frog Bayou, Lee Creek, Mulberry, Little Mulberry, Big Piney, forks of the upper White, Illinois, King's, War Eagle Creek, and several little creeks that flow into those rivers.  The Buffalo is the one EVERYONE should experience from Ponca to Buffalo City.  If your skill level is adequate, definitely find an experienced crew and paddle from Fallsville to Boxley or Ponca (6 miles below Boxley Bridge).  The Buffalo River Handbook, by Kenneth L. Smith, and the hiking guides of Tim Ernst are must reads.  The handbook provides historical content as well as geographic and tourist information.  The civil war was a desperate time for Buffalo River valley inhabitants and families were divided.  For instance, the Villines clan of Boxley Valley, which boasts future country music star Merle Haggard among its members, was on one end pro-Union and on the other end pro-Confederacy.  The bushwhackers made life nearly unbearable in northern Arkansas and life was cheap. Peace groups sprang up throughout Arkansas and many of those men fled to the backwoods of the Ozarks to avoid conscription in Confederate or Union armies and some likely became bushwhackers themselves. Lawlessness was rife and sustenance was scarce, sending most folks to flight.  The civil war activity of either army in this region was a logistical nightmare lacking rails or good roads.  Many a marching soldier was shoeless or became so after not a whole lot of marching in the Ozarks.  Bare-footed troops with the lower pants legs shredded by vegetation on the roads and trails they marched were common sights. 

Whitewater paddling has been mostly replaced by lakes and big rivers (Beaver Lake and Table Rock Lake are fun to paddle and offers plenty of mileage and waves).  Mad River Synergy 12 footer has seen as many miles and pleasurable experiences as my whitewater Prijon Tornado by now.  The  Prijon has seen thousands of miles between my ownership and one of the great paddlers of the Ozarks who paddled in the boat before I purchased it.  What a great boat.  The only time it failed me was because of its length.  My wife dropped me off at Boxley, one day, and I was going to paddle a quick trip to Ponca.  I was scouting a rapid that had a tree down, so I grabbed the eddy and scouted.  The water was rather high, so the eddy was flowing upriver rather quickly and I broke out of the eddy at a bottleneck and the bow of my boat hit a tree on the opposite shore and I rolled it.  I swam furiously through several swift pools hanging onto my paddle and tethered to a spraydeck and never caught it until I reached the big pool right below Ponca.  My wife saw my boat floating upside down while waiting for me at the low water bridge at Ponca and didn't know what to think.  As she saw it, I had climbed out of the river and run along the fields where the elk hang out through the briars and cane stands along the riverbank and yelled out to her, so she wouldn't think I drowned.  I ran to the bridge, ditched my spraydeck, life-jacket, and paddle and swam as fast as I could to catch the boat before it went through another rapid which would have made it impossible for me to catch through that section.  I caught the boat at the tail end of the pool.  Short lesson in that incident: Never paddle a river alone.  You never know what might happen. 

I have enjoyed the Ozarks and the Buffalo River the past couple of decades and I feel fortunate that Dr. Neil Compton fought to save this river from the dam project.  Many natives of the river valley weren't so happy about the result at the time.  They wanted the dams and they wanted a lake.  The gorgeous ancient scenery is too rich to be flooded in my opinion.  Thanks again, Dr. Compton for your service to Arkansas and the world.