May Harpeth Float

Click graphic to enlarge.
Though I had planned to paddle more this month, Mother Nature had other ideas. May brought torrential rains and flooding to middle Tennessee with two-day totals coming close to 20" in some areas. Sections of the state experienced 1000-year floods, meaning that the rainfall totals had only a .1% chance of occurring.

All the rivers in this part of Tennessee, including sections of the Harpeth River, broke longstanding records for flood levels (see link in previous paragraph), but by the time Jimmy and I got down to the Harpeth today, the river depth had returned to normal. Still, in the stretch we paddled near Franklin, the river had crested above 35 feet, and we saw plenty of evidence of the flood's effects. Trees were down across the river in several spots, and we spent some time with a folding saw clearing limbs from one that had fallen up against a sand bar. In addition, Sneed Road Bridge was under repair due to flood damage, and in the wide portion of river just beyond the bridge, the river was almost completely dammed by flood debris. We passed by a blue wheelbarrow dangling from limbs nearly three stories up, and one section of riverbank appeared entirely washed out.

Click pictures to enlarge.




May Harpeth Float


Above is the GPS capture of our trip from my Garmin handheld. We covered 10 miles in about 4 hours and 20 minutes. That time included stops for portaging, fishing, and clearing tree limbs.

I didn't fish much but caught a couple of lively bream. Other wildlife we encountered included several geese cooling off in the river, a deer bounding along the river bank, and a large owl flying down river. The owl lit momentarily in a riverside tree branch, and I tried unsuccessfully to snap a picture before it flew.

There were also some phantom beasts. The construction crew at Sneed Road Bridge tried to put one over on me by shouting about "poisonous snakes" in the downed trees I portaged. I laughed it off, but I was actually concerned with the abundant poison ivy lining the river bank where I needed to put my hands.




Jimmy's report of the trip can be found here, and his photos from the float can be seen here. It should be clear that I have blatantly stolen some of his photos without copyright permissions.

With my new camera, a Panasonic DMC-TS2 (review forthcoming), I captured some HD video of the river. If you choose the 720p option in the YouTube clip below, you get a sense of the camera's video capability.