Arkansas River, Hutchinson to Yoder, August 25-26, 2007
Arkansas River Coalition Mini-Float
By Janice Lind
Pictured from Left to Right; Mike Estep, Vince Marshall, Wally Siebel, Rich Lind, Janice Lind. Not pictured: Chris Collins
Arkansas River Coalition Mini-Float. Wally Siebel, Trip Leader
On Saturday, August 25, 2007, Vince Marshall, Rich Lind and Janice Lind left Vince’s truck at the Haven Road bridge and headed toward Hutchinson to the put-in location. On their way, they caught up to Chris Collins just before entering South Hutchinson and watched as he missed his turn. They drove to the 4th Street bridge west of Hutchinson where Wally Siebel was waiting. While the floaters were checking out the river, an Animal Control truck drove up and released an opossum in a nearby tree. The critter quickly climbed to the top of the tree to get away from his captor. Mike Estep and Chris soon showed up (Chris admitted to taking the “long” route to get there). While Wally, Chris, Mike and Janice were shuttling vehicles, Rich and Vince had a contest to see who could throw the most rocks into the abandoned swallow’s nests under the bridge. Vince was the winner, successfully launching a few rocks more than Rich (although neither of their scores was a high number and we only have their word since there were no witnesses). Also, Vince found a bright orange bobber floating in the water and attached it to his hat as decoration – quite stylish. After shuttling vehicles (Wally’s to the Haven Road bridge, and Chris and Mike’s vehicles to the Yoder Road bridge), we launched at 11:00 a.m. and floated about an hour before stopping for lunch on a sand bar in Carey Park (lunched from noon-12:45 p.m.) On the afternoon float we found ourselves between railroad bridges, with trains running on both of them. Vince and Chris discovered a “floatie” lodged in some brush, so Janice pulled it for the rest of the float. Rich soon found a board that would make a great kitchen food preparation table for the evening meal on the sandbar, so he towed it behind his kayak. Although the day began cloudy and comfortably cool, the afternoon soon heated up with full sunshine and ample wind. The water was deep and flowing well, but we still managed to scrape bottom a few times (now where’d that channel go?). We reached the Yoder Road bridge at 2:30 p.m. and the day-floaters – Mike, Chris and Janice – exited there. The overnighters – Vince, Wally and Rich – continued on a short ways and camped on a sandbar. The evening was a comfortable temperature and the campfire was enjoyable but not necessary. After listening to the screech owls and watching Vince blow up his air mattress without hyperventilating, all turned in for the night.
On Sunday, Wally, Vince and Rich enjoyed a short morning float to the Haven Road bridge. This stretch of the river is noticeably less cluttered with unsightly rip-rap and other debris than areas south of Wichita. The floaters reached the Haven Road bridge at 10:00 a.m. before the temperature rose to an uncomfortable level.
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