The Wild and Scenic Eleven Point River

We were up early this morning, as we have an appointment to make. We're only 63 miles from our destination, but we are finding that you don't get anywhere quickly on these winding Ozark Mountain roads. It's hard for Denisa to sit and watch these narrow roads, so she busied herself with making phone calls and tidying up on this drive that took close to two hours. Can you believe that after two months, she's still making calls to the insurance company trying to get her Mother's fire settlement finished?!?

As if we didn't have enough problems meeting cars and trucks on this narrow and winding road, now we see that we must also worry about slow-moving Amish buggies around every blind curve?!?

We got permission to park the motor home at Harp's Grocery in Alton, Missouri, and then we headed north nine more miles to Richard's Canoe and Kayak Rental in the tiny town of Greer. This outfitter has been taking paddlers on river trips for many years, and we had found them on-line. We were a little worried about our choice when it took them twenty minutes to find the keys to a drivable vehicle so they could shuttle us to our put-in spot this morning.

But we finally got a ride that allowed us to drop our pickup off at our take out spot, and then shuttled us on to Cane Bluff where we would start our float trip. Our driver stopped on the way to let us see the river from the bluffs high above.

He even took a picture of us together on that cliff, with the Eleven Point River far below us. We also found that the owner of Richard's Canoe Rental died last week, and a grandson is trying to take over the business. We think things will get more organized once they figure out where all the car keys are. 

We have on jackets and long pants for this float trip because we are enjoying some cool summer weather. We were finally on our wild and scenic float trip by 10:30, glad that it had warmed up some by then.

This is the Eleven Point River, designated as a Wild and Scenic National River in 1968. It was one of the original eight rivers that got this title when the United States started this system that year.

It literally takes an act of Congress to designate these rivers. They must be undammed free-flowing rivers, and they are protected by this national title. This also means that they must be left in their natural state. So a wild and scenic river will have fallen trees and large tree root balls along their paths. Those obstacles would normally be removed by outfitters to make the float trip easier on any other river. We saw lots of downed trees on both sides of the river as we passed by.

To quote the official definition, this designation is "to preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values in a free-flowing condition for the enjoyment of current and future generations." Only the national forest service is allowed to make the decision of which trees can be trimmed or removed on a national wild and scenic river. We were glad to see that they had done some trimming just last week, as it would have been difficult to get around this big tree that fell across the river.    

It's early in the normal floating season, even though we were told that they can float the bottom half of the Eleven Point River all year long. We didn't see any other people on the water today. We did see a few animals, as deer came down to the edge of the water in several places. This one was a little surprised to see us.

We also saw lots of birds on the banks. We decided not to bring the good camera, as we weren't sure about the stability of our boat and the speed of the river. If we turned over today, we didn't want to take our good camera swimming. So we brought our very old camera, and we had forgotten that it can't photograph the birds very well. We kept this blurry picture of a green heron because it was the best we could do with the old camera.

We commented that this was an interesting float, with a nice combination of quiet spots where you need to do a little paddling . . .

and some not-so-quiet spots where you have to pay attention and make decisions about which way to navigate around downed trees or swift current. We rented a tandem kayak today, and we can say it certainly doesn't handle as well as our inflatable kayak in the wilder parts of this wild and scenic rivers.

At the half-way point, we beached our boat to stretch our legs at Thompson Landing. We have really enjoyed the scenic cliffs around us so far on this wild and scenic river.

We can also say that we are spoiled to the comfortable inflatable seats in our Sea Eagle kayak. The seats on this rental kayak are not nearly as nice for a long trip. It felt good to get out and walk around for a while.

But Mark is still smiling as Denisa takes a rare picture of the rudder man on this 8-mile float trip. We chose to float one of the upper sections of the Eleven Point River. This is the narrower and slower section, and can only be floated until mid-June when the water level will get too low. We had to choose our path carefully today, as we got grounded on sand bars a couple times.

The river gets wider and faster when Greer Spring joins the flow of the Eleven Point River. We got to witness that when we came around the curve and could see the riffles in the water ahead. The water from the 10th largest spring in the world is coming our way!

The river also got wider to accommodate the extra water, and it smoothed out nicely. We are floating quicker now, and our outfitter said that the water speed now is about twice what it will be later in the summer.

When we got to the only bridge crossing, we knew that our float was almost over. The bridge was one of the hardest obstacles to navigate, as logs were snagged on the bridge columns. It was tough to find a place deep enough and clear enough to get by.

It took us 2.5 hours to make our 8-mile float, and we successfully found our take-out point at Greer Park. Even though we like our kayak better, it was nice to not have to dry it off and put ours away today. That left us time to do a little sight-seeing in this area. Our first stop was at Greer Mill. This is an unusual mill built high on the hill and away from the powerful spring that powered it. Instead of a paddle wheel attached to the building, this grist mill used a turning cable that ran all the way up the hill.

We drove to the trail head, and then took the long hike through the woods to get a look at that spring. The guy at the outfitter shop told us that it was less than a mile straight down to Greer Spring, but it would feel like three miles coming back up.

But the payoff was good when we finally got to the mouth of the cave where the water from Greer Springs comes out.

This is the second-largest spring in Missouri, and the tenth largest in the world. It releases about 220 million gallons of water each day. That's a lot of water rushing out of a cave and into a narrow channel between two tall bluffs!

Our outfitter told us that it all gushes out of a single fissure in the underground rock. He claimed that if you put a fifty-pound anvil on that fissure, the pressure of the water would hold that anvil in the air. This guy is obviously a very quotable local that has lived here all his life. He even kayaked this stretch of water as a young man.

We're not sure about all his claims, but we are sure that this is a beautiful place! We have wandered into another of God's wonders in this wild and scenic area!

Signs at the beginning of the trail asked hikers to stay on the trail provided. As we trudged the one mile (that felt like three miles) up the hill, we would notice that much of the green around us was poison ivy. That should be incentive to stay on the trail for sure.

We've seen some beautiful places today on this wild and scenic float around Greer, Missouri. It was so wild that Denisa blew the sole right off her boat shoes! This is the second time this week that we've taken a picture of Denisa losing the sole off a shoe. This probably has something to do with having old shoes, as both these pairs were on board when we started our full-time travels seven and a half years ago. It looks like it is time to go shoe shopping--or time to get out the shoe-goo.