Monday, September 24, 2007

411 on Yellow Creek

Yellow Creek in northern Houston County (NoHo?) is on the short list of river destinations for November.

First of all, it's got that frontier sound to it we like, reinforced by placenames along the way like "Bushwhacker Hollow" and "Opossum Creek"....





It is small and meandering and gorgeous, like a good creek ought to be...





The water is not yellow, it's crystal clear. The color of the gravel bottom through the clear water gives it its name...





You may recall we had to navigate around a dam on the Spring '04 trip (East Fork Stones River). Yellow Creek requires a short portage for the same reason but a different corps of engineers...








Normally a creek is a bad choice for floating during a drought and this one does require a lot of water on the upper stretches.




However (and the reason we're still considering it), Yellow Creek flows into the Cumberland River at an elevation that is still flooded by the Lake Barkley impoundment. That means it gets wider and deeper as you get farther downstream....





By the time you get to the take out...







...it's like you're going down the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee. Instead of all the rest of them dried up rebel rivers.


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