Something To Chew On
September 24-30, 2018
By Becca Bona
becca@dailydata.com
Rollin’ on the river
If you frequent this humble column often, then you know that I don’t usually get out into the Natural State that much. You also know that I’ve been doing my best to change that lately and have recently purchased an ISUP (inflatable stand up paddle board) with my boyfriend.
Cue this week’s story.
By the time this prints, the weather in Arkansas is finally will hopefully be cooperating for what we call “autumn” following the solstice, but just a few short weeks ago my boyfriend and I made the trek to the Buffalo River to try our hand at captaining the tandem paddleboard down the river.
First, if I have ever been to the Buffalo, it’s definitely been a while (as in I’m not sure I ever have been). Second, I had no idea the history that this lovely river holds and its importance to our nation as a whole. Likely, if you meet someone from the middle of the country who is into the Great Outdoors, they either know of the Buffalo or have been there multiple times themselves.
After we had already gotten ourselves a shuttle with Buffalo River Outfitters (an easy process, for all you newbs like me – you should try it sometime), and were far into our float, the boyfriend explained that the Buffalo River was the first National River in all of the United States of America.
Richard Nixon designated 135 miles of the 150-mile river to be maintained by the National Park Service in 1972. This was a full 100 years after the first national park (Yellowstone, if you’re wondering,) was established.
A four-hour adventure on the sparkling waters that have been traversed by so many before went relatively smoothly. We managed to fall at the very beginning as I was a bit too ecstatic in my attempt to mimic moves from the “Matrix”, but we came up laughing.
If you’re going to fall, you might as well as get it over with at the beginning.
I successfully gained my sea legs, and we stopped many times along the course of our float, often to talk to people about why were standing up on a moving board down the river.
We were slightly exotic to plenty of folks in regular canoes, although I know from other ISUP paddlers, the Buffalo is a fun haunt, and we are by no means the first to tame it.
I couldn’t believe the sheer beauty of the rocks cut by the river, the bluffs overlooking shimmying waters moving at various speeds, with fish jumping, and flattened rocks strewn all about.
It was like a scene from a Bob Ross painting.
The only negative was that I managed to finally get our first hole in the paddle board, when I took the wrong fork. I practiced directing us all day and did what I thought was a pretty swell job, but that last fork nearly did me in.
I made a cardinal mistake, and closed (yes closed) my eyes. We were beached on some jagged rocks faster than you can say ‘oopsies’.
The good news? I got to experience a real life Bob Ross painting, I learned about the history of the Buffalo and all those conservationists who have kept it a free-flowing beauty, safe from being dammed.
The bad news?
Well … I’ll get back to you if our handy patch kit doesn’t work wonders like it’s supposed to.
