#paddling
Floating the Lower Ouachita River
As the mid-Summer sun beats the Arkansas paddling rivers down to an unfloatable trickle, finding a place to paddle becomes a challenge. This is when it becomes necessary to turn to spring-fed options like the Eleven Point River, or dam-fed options like the Little Red or Little Missouri Rivers. For many in Central and South Arkansas, floating the Lower Ouachita River from Lake Catherine to Malvern is the go-to option. I had never floated this river until 2014. But I was pleasantly surprised by it and have made many return trips since then. I really like this float for so many reasons. Aside from being a short drive, the put-in and take-outs are also really easy to access. It’s a float that you can do fairly quick, or you can make it last all day. And best of all, the river almost alwa...
Floating the Caddo River – Caddo Gap to Glenwood
The Caddo River is the premier floating river in the Ouachita region for casual paddlers. For those that don’t have the whitewater paddling skill to tackle the Cossatot or Little Missouri Rivers, the Caddo is the place to be. A good argument can be made for the Ouachita River, which has some very scenic stretches. But it doesn’t tend to keep a good flow for as long as the Caddo does. A good reliable flow is why floating the Caddo River from Caddo Gap to Glenwood is one of the most popular floats in the area. As someone that mostly floated the Buffalo and Mulberry Rivers for the longest time, I was late to the party on floating the Caddo. But once I finally floated it in 2013, I was pleasantly surprised at what a great float it is. In fact, it’s regular trip for me nearly ...
High-water float on the Buffalo River – Pruitt to Hasty
All of this rain recently has me thinking back to the summer of 2015 when a group of friends and I got to experience a rare high-water float on the Buffalo River. I say “rare” because it was in the middle of summer. It was the 4th of July to be exact. Anyone that has ever floated the Buffalo at that time of year knows the water is usually too low to float without a lot of dragging and paddling. But this time the water was so high we almost didn’t get to float at all. We had just had a heavy rain the day before we set up camp at Tyler Bend Campground. We planned to float from Baker Ford to Tyler Bend the next day. That evening our outfitter informed us that the river was over 12 feet. If it did not go down overnight, we would not be allowed to get on the water the next day...
