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Thursday, December 12, 2002
We marked the trail down Bayou Courtableau, just in time for the official opening on November 10. It took two days and three boats to do the job. Dee Goldman and Dave Fisher from the Corps of Engineers office in Port Barre helped the first day; we marked the upper half of the trail. I learned to bring my GPS along; we started at the middle of the trail and tried working our way back up, but took a wrong turn and wandered in the swamp for 40 minutes. Then we got in at the top and worked our way down, and found our mistake. The next day, Phil Fontenot and Bobby Dickerson showed up with their boats, and we marked the lower half of the trail. I found out it's best to schedule more than one boat...Bobby's boat had a dead battery. This was just as well, because it was a really nice bass boat, not meant for the choked and winding passages of the upper part of the trail.
Bobby made a comeback for the opening ceremony: we had everyone paddle down the trail to the halfway point, and turn off into the base of the Gremitt Canal, which loops back up near the top of the trail. There we met Bobby in his boat and Paul Miller and his party barge. They towed the paddlers back upstream. The tow proceeded without incident until the very end. When we tried to pull up to a grassy bank, the current caught Paul's barge broadside and swept it against two pilings. Pandemonium ensued. Spooked, everybody took off when they hit the shore, and didn't stick around for an after-action review. We had actually practiced the whole trip-and-tow setup for Experience Atchafalaya Days in October, but there wasn't much current back then.
This coming Saturday and Monday, we're off again to mark the trail down to the levee in Henderson. There are some really nice sections that come off of Lake Fordoche heading east and west, and bend to the south.
James 12:55 PM [+]
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