Home2023-05 Wapanocca NWR Report

Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge - May 6, 2023

Submitted by Mike Dale

Seven of us paddled. Unfortunately, Ben, who initiated the meetup, couldn’t attend. Ben’s familiarity with Wapanocca would have been a benefit to the entire group. Deb M. and I were paddling a tandem canoe together for the first time and I’m sure Ben could have provided us useful advice on that as well.

The club has typically paddled Wapanocca when it first opens in March to avoid bugs and weeds. Fortunately, neither was a problem for us. The water was a bit high compared to my previous experience but launching was not difficult. There was a strong breeze from the south, but it did not affect us until we reached the main lake. The temperature was warmer than expected and resulted in some last minute wardrobe adjustments.

The canoe launch is behind the visitors center and separate from the launch used by power boats. We did encounter people fishing from power boats but they were not a problem.

A very pretty, marked and clear channel leads roughly south to open water in the north west corner of the main lake. Toward the end of this channel a trail marker pointed east into the cypress stand. However, we found it pretty clogged with downed limbs and returned to the clear channel. Perhaps we misunderstood the marker.

At the end of the channel we paddled east along the north side of the lake sheltered from the wind by the cypress stand. The cypress stand is navigable in this area but does require effort to find a path.

The north east corner of the lake is very grassy. We stopped and conferred whether to continue into the grass. The more adventurous in the group prevailed but after a brief struggle in the grass and continued windy conditions preventing a circuit on the main lake, we elected to return to the cypress stand on the north shore for a return to the launch.

Overall we spent 2-3 hours paddling but only covered a fraction of the 6 mile loop of the lake that is possible on a calm day. There were no mishaps but the paddle was sufficiently strenuous that we did not feel cheated by lack of distance covered.

Wapanocca Grassy Area difficult to penetrate2

For more photos of this event click here.