Friday, April 29, 2005

Morels


Well, it's morel season again. I hiked around a park along the White River on the south side of Indianapolis and found one yellow morel. I went up by Eagle Creek on the northwest side of town and checked a spot I found some morels at last year. Here I found about 10 yellows about 3-4 inches tall. They'll make tasty treats for tommorrow's BBQ.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Big South Fork, KY


Well, another trip to Kentucky. My buddy and I went down for two nights on the river in our kayaks. We got to the Blue Heron Campground Thursday night and got rather tooled with beers, whiskey, and weed. We didn't get up bright and early the next morning, but we weren't on much of a schedule. We put in at Station camp (streamflow was about 900 cfs at the Leatherwood gauge) around 2:00. We had started drinking again and after about an hour we found a really nice spot and decided to call it a day. We tried out luck at fishing with no success. We got camp set up just before the rain started. It rained all night, but only came down really hard (with a little hail) for about five minutes. We had gotten the fire going before the rain so we stayed pretty warm. We also had a shower radio to provide us with some tunes. Saturday we got up and paddled about 20 miles. The section of the river between Station Camp and Blue Heron is full of nice class I and II rapids, perfect for out 14 foot kayaks. The temperature was a little cool and the sun was hiding most of the day, but a very nice day of paddling. We stopped to camp a few miles past Blue Heron. Sunday we got up and paddled the last 5 miles to the car. After about 2 miles past Blue Heron there are no more rapids and today was all flatwater. There are also some fishing boats cruising through the area past the rapids, so if you're looking for solitude it's probably best to go no further than Blue Heron. The only downside to the trip was when we got back to my buddy's car we discovered some hillbilly motherfucker had broken in and rifled through all his stuff. Luckily they only took the change out of his cup holder, a little tool kit, and a watch. The watch was a bad loss, but he had alot of other stuff in there they didn't take, including the car itself (the keys were in the console).

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Fall Creek

I went for a short paddle today down Fall Creek on the east side of Indianapolis. Three of us put in at the 79th St bridge and paddled down to the last canoe portage before the 56th St bridge. The water was low, only about 200 cfs. There are a couple logs you have to go around or over at this water level. Should have put more sunblock on though. The weather was perfectly sunny and warm. Should have put on more sunblock though.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Morgan-Monroe State Forest

I took off from work at noon today and went south of Martinsville for a little day hike. The state forest is only about a 45 minute drive from my house in Indy. It was a nice day out today, felt like the first true day of spring. Everything is starting to turn green and come into bloom. I only hiked around for about 2 hours and then decided to swing by Oliver Winery for some wine tasting. The winery is only a few miles south of the entrance to the state forest off Hwy 37.