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A Dry Run: The river is always changing, but this drought is getting old
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Published: June 8, 2008
Updated: 06/07/2008 09:20 pm
If the recent rains have fooled you into thinking that the drought is over, try navigating the Dan River in Stokes County. Be prepared to step out of the boat and walk.
Actually, we didn't have to abandon ship more than once or twice when we took our first -- and I hope not last -- canoeing trip of the season last Sunday afternoon. But we did spend a lot more time watching out for shallow stretches and big rocks lurking just below the surface than we did worrying about negotiating any rapids. We were more likely to be searching for water more than a few inches deep than for the watery "vee" that signals the safe course through a rough stretch.
I keep an eye on the river when I drive across it daily on my way to work. Late last summer, the view from the bridge on U.S. 311 east of Walnut Cove was dominated by a huge and spreading sandbar, and we had to abandon any hope of canoe trips. But this spring, after the rains started and the sandbar disappeared, we started talking about venturing down the river "while there's water in it."
Our logistics weren't particularly well thought out, but eventually we had our small flotilla loaded on pickups. At that point, we were forced to get organized enough to decide which stretch of river we were going to tackle.
The run that goes from Hanging Rock State Park access to Moratock Park won out. Our last trip before the water got too low last summer was farther downstream, from Dodgetown Road to the area where Walnut Cove used to have a power dam.
Walnut Cove built the dam and went into the power business when times were booming early in the 20th century, but then the Great Depression hit, banks failed, railroads moved out and the town couldn't pay off its loans. Walnut Cove went bankrupt, and it took the town years to get back on solid footing. Long ago, we canoed that stretch of the river and had to portage around the dam, but at some point it was dynamited, leaving behind chunks of concrete that make some of the best rapids on the river. But that's another story.
We had hit that stretch last summer in quest of garnets. Years ago a friend had showed us an island there where it was easy to pick up small rocks containing garnets, some of them quite good quality. Last summer, though, we couldn't find the island, much less the garnets. Streams change dramatically over time, with droughts and floods and the forces of nature, and the islands in them come and go.
This time, we were lured back upstream by the memory of a nice surprise we came upon there on a trip early last summer. That day, typically disorganized, we'd hit the river a bit late, and the late-afternoon shadows were lengthening as we rounded a bend. There, close to shore, we saw otters playing in the water. It wasn't long before they spotted us, and then they were gone like a flash.
The otters weren't there waiting for us last Sunday, of course.
We did spot a groundhog on the river bank, and then stopped paddling to watch, fascinated, as he clambered into a cleft in the ancient rocky cliff towering over the river and then kept popping out of different places on the rocks to spy on us. We could only imagine the network of tunnels he has inside that cliff, and what fun he must have there.
I don't know if it had anything to do with the water being so low, but we saw neither as many fish nor as many blue herons and other birds as usual. Instead, it was a day for snakes. Hardly were we afloat before we spotted the first one, coiled on a sunny rock. It was most likely a northern water snake, one of those fat snakes that have given rise to horror tales about nests of deadly cottonmouth moccasins in the lake at Hanging Rock and other places in the Piedmont, even though cottonmouths don't live in this part of the state and these water snakes aren't poisonous. While the four of us in the two canoes tried to get a better view and photos of the snake without getting too close to it, our sailor in a kayak forged ahead and found an even larger water snake on another rock. Twice, later, he spotted snakes swimming across the river.
We also came upon a couple of schools of noisy humans, coolers in tow, trying to make it down the river on inner tubes. Like us, they had found that the river was lower than it looked, lower than the recent rains had led us to hope. They joked about hitching onto our canoes; the river was slow going for tubes, and they were getting cold.
The nicest surprise of the day was a discovery of garnets on a small island that wouldn't be an island in normal times. Last year, we searched for garnets where we'd found them before, with no luck. This time, we hoped to find otters where we'd seen them before, and found garnets.
The most constant thing about the river is change. You can travel the same stretch time after time, and it's always delightfully different. Low water, however, is becoming an all too enduring part of the story. This drought is far from over. Pray for more rain.
■ Brinson is the Journal's editorial-page editor. She can be reached at lbrinson@wsjournal.com.
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