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have majestic paddle trail all their own |
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ENC FREEDOM |
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most of the human race.Downed trees and beaver dams blocked canoe and kayak access to this secret world. "You couldn't see the river in some of the places, the debris was so thick,"said Micheal Banks, owner of the White Oak River Outfitters, which rents canoesand kayaks at the White Oak River Campground in Maysville. Saturday, the Crystal Coast Canoe and Kayak Club jumped through the looking glass into a world where giant cypress trees stand guard over water hyacinths, debutantes donned in lavender dresses for their spring coming out balls.A place where black-tie birds all out ppriciation from above, but serpants also lie in wait. A place where, even on a rainy day, the sun peaks from behind the clouds and beams through oaks draped in spanish moss, and reflects on the gentle flow of water giggling at the sky blue Tinkerbells buzzing in and out of the light. In conjunction with National Trails Day, the paddlers took their first organized trip through wonderland to celebrate the opening of the upper White Oak River paddle trail. Then attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the White Oak River Campground in Maysville. It was the culmination of what kayak enthusiast Connie Asero called a seven year quest that began when Banks attended a CCCKC meeting to seek volunteers to help clear storm debris caused by the hurricanes of the late 1990's. They soon realized volunteers would not be enough and with the help of the White Oak River Advisory Board, the Friends of the Upper White Oak River and Jones County procured a $70,000 grant from the NC Division of Water Resources to cut a trail through the waters. But it had to be done right, Asero said. Ofte, environmental activists or wildlife officials oppose cleaning storm debris from rivers because of the damage it can do., Asero said. The traditional method of cleaning storm debris is to remove the entire downed tree, cut into sections, pulling them out of the river and leaving them on the banks, she said. "You end up scraping up the shoreline and you end up with the river flowing faster than it should because there are no shrubs in the water, so you get erosion," Asero said.The removal of plants also takes away fish habitat, she added. For this project, the contractors simply cut about an 8 foot section from the downed trees and used a wench to move them away from the shoreline. It created a channel wide enough for a canoe or johnboat, but still kept the river's natural flow. Starting last October and completing the task in January, contractors removed about 800 trees and 50 beaver dams from about 24 miles of the stream from it's headwaters near Hoffman State Forest to Haywood Landing in the CroatanNational Forest, Banks said. Afterward, a beaver trapping effort took place through March, he said. By Saturday paddlers had to open numerous beaver dams to make the trek. It was all part of the fun for Gary Scruggs of Newport. "I love obstacles, Scroggs said. "To me, that's just a challenge." |
You can read more about the White Oak River at the following links:
| www.eenorthcarolina.org/public/ecoaddress/riverbasins/whiteoak3.pdf |
| www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc/nfnc_fishing/white_oak_river.htm |
