This paddle trip was the first of its kind for me because up to this point I had never done any overnight kayak trips prior to this one. Although I’ve backpacked in the Big South Fork in all seasons of the year and it’s a beautiful place, this trip gave me another view of the area and wow, I am hooked! It was a total success that I intend do in the years to come. We paddled, floated, fished, relaxed, and enjoyed the wildlife on this trip.
Before I go any further I want to emphasize the ability this river possesses to do serious harm under the right conditions. People have died on this river at the lower levels so one can only imagine how dangerous it could be at the higher levels. I’m a just casual recreational paddler so I watched the online site of the Leatherwood Flow Gauge to make sure it wasn’t doing anything outrageous. I’ve added the link below. I also kept close watch on the weather forecast to make sure an overabundance of rainfall wasn’t expected upstream. I’d advise any recreational paddler to do the same. I’d definitely have a plan B like backpacking in case the weather forecast is bad. You will already be in the Big South Fork area so it only makes sense.
USGS CURRENT CONDITIONS BIG SOUTH FORK RIVER AT LEATHERWOOD FORD
We planned as best as we could but none of us had paddled this stretch before so we learned as we went. We just knew that we were starting at Leatherwood Ford and ending hopefully at Blue Heron Mine (a retired mining community that’s currently set up as a ranger station and museum of sorts). We had to spot a vehicle at Blue Heron Mine so the process of spotting vehicles and purchasing a permit took us about two hours round trip from our starting point at Leatherwood Ford. We met a ranger at the Blue Heron Mine and purchased our backcountry permit while spotting our vehicle.
As far as camping goes, we very lucky the first night because we happened upon a small campsite area that wasn’t too far from a small-vessel boat launch. It was complete with a dedicated fire pit, picnic table and a public restroom about eighty yards away. Not to mention, we had an owl who talked to us all the while we dined on filet mignon and a spiked watermelon. This worked out great because it can be somewhat difficult to find flat campsites on the river bank, lol. Our second campsite was even better, it was a gorgeous semi-flat beach that easily had plenty of room for our three tents and a fire. This beach is located about one hundred yards downstream of Devils Jump. That night we rested on the beach and stared up at the stars, with the sound of the boiling water from Devils Jump in the background. Outstanding!
A rough estimate of our paddling mileage would probably be: Day 1: 8 miles; Day 2: 17-18 miles; Day 3: 1-2 miles.
We had two portages that we knew we had to make – Angel Falls and Devils Jump. Angel Falls was the first and fairly easy to spot but Devils Jump snuck up on us and at the very last second we pulled to shore and portaged. With the current CFM at the time we went being 300-400 most of the rapids were class 1-2 with the exception of Angel Falls and Devils Jump being class 4. It’s a good thing we decided to stop because I wanted no part of this rapid in my Perception Swifty recreational kayak especially since it was loaded with all of my gear that I wanted to keep dry.
I left my Dagger Kayaks 10.5 Axis
The only thing that I didn’t like about this paddling trip was the occurrence of old tires along the river. Other than that it was perfect!
MY GEAR
| PERCEPTION SWIFTY KAYAK 9.5 |
| QUEST CHUTE PADDLE |
Below is some information we used for this trip as well as some links to additional information.
http://www.nps.gov/biso/planyourvisit/upload/webriver.pdf
http://fw.ky.gov/Education/Pages/Big-South-Fork.aspx
I’ve attached a few pictures below…
I took along the OR dry-bags below and they worked great in keeping all of my gear dry!
Cincinnati
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