Kayaking - Yellow Creek 7/6/13

Yellow Creek  7/6/13                              Miles Traveled 7 miles, Total 109.3
Scotty & Julie, Put in at Lylewood Road, paddled across Cumberland River, then up Yellow Creek
Sunny Skies, 80 degrees, 12:30 - 2:00 (15 minute break), then 2:15-3:30back

We had planned to do the Harpeth River, but rain was forecast for the entire day.  We were cleaning Amanda's car when the sun came out against a beautiful blue sky.  We checked the weather online and discovered that the rain was now predicted to come at 5:00.  So we left the car, and packed up the kayaks.  We headed to Yellow Creek as it's close - in case the rain did come.

We put in at Lylewood Road boat ramp and had to paddle across the Cumberland River.  The river was very choppy as if a barge or boat had just gone through, except that we didn't see any!  There was  a lot of debris floating down.  We saw a huge tree coming down river, then it circled around out in the middle of the river.  The waves were very unusual.  There had been a lot of rain the 3 days before.  We got into Yellow Creek and passed a family fishing on a pontoon boat.  They had just put in, as they had also seen the sun just appear.

We paddled upstream for one hour and 30 minutes.  The creek looked more like a river.   The section of river under Route 149 is already very wide, but at some points it looked like it was 100 feet across.  When we paddled it back in November, we remembered it being narrow.  We never passed anybody else again on the river.  The last time we paddled here, we passed a lot of fishermen.  There were some trees down, but there weren't any sections that were hard to navigate.  We got close to McFall Road  as we heard traffic, but didn't paddle entirely up to it.  We had a light snack on one of the sandbars.  There were very few sandbars to stop, as the creek was high and covered the sandbars and banks.  
It took us an hour and 15 minutes to paddle back.  Although the day's prediction was rain, it never did and we were glad to get in a paddle!

This is how we transport the kayaks on the truck.  Scotty put two 2x4's across the truck and we strap them down.  

The tree we saw floating down the Cumberland River

Here you can see the steam plant in Erin.

This shows how high the creek was.  The greenery sticking out are tree shrubs.