Wabash (Lafayette area) Aug. 29
There has certainly been some odd weather this year. Most years there isn’t much flow by this time of year, which is why I schedule the Wabash trip around late August to early September, since it is a larger river and has reliable flow even in dry times. Well, this year the Wabash at Lafayette reached 19.58 ft. on Aug. 16, which is moderate flood level. The level when we launched on Aug. 29 was 8.93 ft. @ 12.7 kcfs, which is still much higher than normal for late August.
We had several cancel after I sent out a picture of the mud covered put-in ramp. And a couple more had to cancel due to car problems. The mud really wasn’t that bad because the mud was on top of solid concrete. Brent Saucerman and I shoveled a walking path to the water’s edge, and it certainly was not the worst access point I have used this year. Thank you, Brent, for this and also for jump-starting my car after I foolishly forgot to put it into park and the battery ran down. Also, a big thank you to Garry Hill who was in Lafayette that day and served as shuttle bunny.
There were four paddlers on the trip; one tandem canoe and 2 solo kayaks. The high-water level submerged the usual sandbars, so we did not stop until the take out at Ft. Ouiatenon. We did not use the Granville access point because it was still in marginal condition due to the earlier flooding. We did not see as many birds as usual. The high-water level most likely sent them temporarily to easier feeding grounds. We did see one bald eagle and possibly another immature eagle, in addition to some ducks and flocks of smaller birds. There is a new ADA compliant canoe/kayak launch access going in along River Road. Garry drove us through the parking lot for a quick check out on the shuttle return, and we also checked it out from the water as we reached it while going down the river. The weather was near perfect, and we all had a good trip.
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