Saturday Paddlers - Lower Guadalupe River

Designated as "Sacrificial Lambs" by Dear Leader, Nancy, Susan, Sandra and I scouted the Lower Guadalupe River for the Saturday Paddlers before the full onslaught of the dreaded tubing season. The bureaucratic powers controlling the outflow from Canyon dam taunted us by maintaining a discharge rate of about 105 cfs for a full week. Then, starting Thursday morning, the outflow was first reduced to 95 cfs, and then steadily declined all day Friday until it reached 69 cfs late that night. With the trend indicating further reductions in the outflow, we finally surrendered and decided to paddle the Upper Guadalupe. But when the river flow at the Sattler gauge was still at 69 cfs Saturday morning, we reverted to our original plan and headed like docile sheep to the put-in at the downstream crossing of Highway 306. After unloading our boats, we shuttled my van to Bezdek's Rocky Beach, about a half mile upstream of the Third Crossing. Taking out there would give us about 6 miles of river to paddle. And at that river flow rate, I do mean paddle.

I was looking forward to being on this stretch of the river again, one that I used to regularly frequent, as it had been about thirty years since I last paddled it. And, although the water was obviously quite low, we enjoyed the trip. We were able to scrape through most of the shallow areas, and only had to exit the boats a few times. And, yes, there were some long, slow stretches, which usually seemed to jump up at us in combination with a slight headwind. But the scenery was quite beautiful in many places, which mostly made up for the overdeveloped sections. When you build a big dam, the occasional cleansing floods mostly disappear. We were also pleasantly surprised with the number of wildlife sightings, including the Great Blue Heron shown above.

Sandra in one of the early quiet sections.

Some examples of the scenic bluffs along the river.

Limestone ledges carved by the river before the advent of Canyon Dam.

A family of wood ducks abandoned the river as we paddled close by. I was able to get a photo of the male, who acted as the rear guard for the female and their brood.

We stopped for lunch where a small creek flows into the Guadalupe on river right, immediately upstream of the island which splits the river into two channels. Above is the rocky streambed.

We agreed that this was probably the nicest lunch spot we had encountered in the past couple years of paddling.

A large boulder at the confluence of the creek with the river.

Frozen margaritas seemed to make everyone happy.

The point of the island is in the background, beyond that beautiful canoe.









Several large gar stirred the shallow waters. This one was about three feet long.

Nancy displays the latest fashion in sunglasses.

Not another limestone bluff - how boring.

Another Great Blue Heron jealously guarded an S-curve in the river, and protested as Susan glided past.

With Nancy (just out of the picture) approaching from the left, the heron had finally had enough and flew off to a safer perch.

What was always known as Bear Creek Rapids has now been given the tourist-catching moniker of Devil's Playground. Just another example of the over-commercialization of the Lower Guadalupe River and River Road. Or perhaps the new name is appropriate for these two water nymphs.




Some nymphs were more graceful than others.
























It appears that all of the lambs enjoyed the refreshing dip, even if their expressions were somewhat sheepish.

We passed under the private bridge not far upstream from our take-out.

Canoes are so much more elegant than kayaks.






Kathy joined us at Pat's Place in New Braunfels for an early dinner, and took this official photo of the Sacrificial Lambs.

Note: For 21 more photos, click here to link to my Flickr page, then click on "Slideshow" in the upper right portion of that page.