Long time, no paddle

We have water! Actually, we have 'way too much water, but that's kind of the way it is around here: not really feast or famine, but rather absurdly forced feeding until you explode, or famine.

Last weekend we headed out to our friend's cabin near Leakey, in order to mount a paddle on the Frio River, which is usually not paddleable at all. But as you can see, above, our recent rains brought it up to the very nice level of 275 cfs.* 

Although this doesn't sound like much, the high flow did necessitate some adjustment of our plans for launching and shuttling, since most of us were reluctant to drive across Third Crossing, where we launched, like this truck did.

This lovely river, with its crystal clear water and banks graced with tons of stately cypress trees, gave us an exciting and enjoyable afternoon of boating fun.

view from our launch site, on the near side of the river

delicate cypress branches not quite turning yet
(we did see some getting reddish later on)

the view downriver

This pair of cypress are possibly the largest, and most gorgeous, I've ever seen; aren't they spectacular?!

As you can tell from these shots, the scenery around this part of the Frio is especially wonderful. From the trees I've been gushing about, to some particularly handsome—and rugged—cliffs...

this hardly looks like it's in Texas, does it?

view from our friend's cabin

Our lodging spot isn't on the Frio itself, but rather one of its forks...still quite scenic, and with more water than usual.

Here are the little rapids just down the hill...

...and the fork, with lovely fall blooms in the foreground...

---

*As an example of the water feast-or-famine that I mentioned above, go back and look at the pictures I showed you of the Frio and imagine the water to be 10 feet higher; that's what it was like just two days after our paddle, and after a lot more rain (the rain that caused the tragic Llano flooding that's on view in the link near the top of this post). From 275 cfs on Saturday, it crested at 23,000 on Monday morning. Feast or famine, indeed.