Drought times in the Ozarks; Some Rivers still floatable
The heartland of America is facing the worst drought since 1956 and it’s only getting worse. And here in my home state of Missouri(at the moment aptly named; from the French word Misere, meaning “misery), most or all counties experienced the hottest and driest July in history.
The creeks are dry. Ponds have evaporated. Corn crops are long dead(or salvaged? for feed products) and withered soybean fields are snacks for the grasshoppers.
Like many of the lower 48, Missouri is in disaster mode and neighboring Illinois has at least 98 of 102 counties already declared disaster areas.
So as I ponder the content of this post, I’m feeling a little guilt but also a
lot of gratitude for a surprisingly enjoyable float trip we took in the last
week of July.
The drought has severely impacted water levels on most of the Ozark
rivers, but since many of them are spring fed, there are some sections
that are still float worthy.
You may do a little scraping(travel light) and you might have to get out
of your canoe occasionally, but the refreshment you will experience is well
worth it.
Check water levels at: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt )
And of course, check with the outfitters on the river.
Temperatures in St. Louis had been hovering between 100 and 108 for a couple of weeks, so I was fervently looking forward to some relief from the hellacious heat.
Relief that we would find in the cool spring fed waters of the Big Piney
River.
There’s a comfortable reliability that these waters will be cool and refresh.
And when it’s 100 degrees on the river, which it was the first two days of our trip, the refreshment is all the more exuberant.
But I still had a lingering concern that it would be too warm and possibly too humid- TO SLEEP.
A warm muggy night can be a terrible sleep buster. (we shall see)
(another Piney post soon to follow)
