Alley Springs/Jack’s Fork Trip Report
Submitted by Mary Finley – September 30 – October 6, 2024
Monday through Saturday, September 30 – October 5
It was a great week. Some came up on Monday and others, Tuesday, Thursday and everyone arrived on Friday. The weather was chilly at night and mid-70s during the day. Many were using A/C in the daytime and heaters at night. The news of the camp group was Zevo. Yep, the plug-in blue night device with sticky pads work get with flies, mosquitos….etc. You all know Missouri and Arkansas are really known for flies. I suspect that they’d work in you camper in Florida with no-see-ums.
If there was voting for the best cook this week, it would have to be Kevin Burkeen. Wow……that man can cook things in his Weber grill, self-made firepit.
Sitting around Kevin’s firepit, a lady came by and asked where she could pitch her tent. Turns out she is a recently retired teacher was traveling from OK on a visit to her sons and on her way back to West Palm Beach, Fla. Kevin offered her to pitch her tent on his site. Susane was a great lady. She paddled Kevin’s 12’ Pack and went from Alley Springs to Eminence with Richard Sojourner on Wednesday. She did great and Richard and I were both impressed as she was not that experienced.
Thursday was just a quiet day as other arrived at the campground.
On Friday, 8 of us paddled in 7 boats that section again. There were a few dicey places but everybody did just find. We stopped for lunch across from the cave bank.
On Saturday, we had 19 boats and 21 folks heading out. It was a fun day for everybody. Again, we did the section from Alley Springs to Eminence. I was point again and glad that there were those from Friday could be in various places along among the crowd. They were aware of the “iffy” places and where to be alert. We had two swims but everybody was OK and again, we stopped for lunch across from the cave bank. Nope, no one ventured into the cave.
We took out at the ballpark all three days of paddling.
Saturday night we had a great potluck around the firepit at Sandy Stacks site. EJ celebrated his birthday with a cake and a song. We sang to both EJ and Marilyn as her birthday would be Monday Oct. 7th.
Some decided to paddle the Current from Pulltite to Round Springs on Sunday when sitting around the fire Saturday night.
Igor wrote the following about the paddle Sunday.
Sunday, October 6
Several paddlers who wanted to paddle on Sunday but were not crazy about the idea to paddle the same track the group did on Saturday, decided to paddle the Current River instead. We settled on the Pulltite to Round Springs track, which according to a group that paddled this section few days prior, we should cover it in about 3 hours. The paddle plan sounded solid for those of us who needed to paddle and get back home. There were 10 paddlers on Sunday
Thanks to Mike Dale and Richard Sojourner who assisted with shuttle, we were on the river by 11 AM.
The current on the Current was swift and we were moving at the nice pace, however several memorable stops completely crushed our plans to complete this stretch in 3 hours, as we originally planned. About 30 minutes into the trip our first stop was Pulltite Springs, a lovely area that is only accessible by boat. The springs are beautiful and according to an Ozark National Park Service, have a daily flow of 20 to 30 million gallons. Next to the Springs there is a historical structure knows as a The Pulltite Cabin. It has a unique design of French style in which the logs are placed upright so as not to have to notch them. According to a historical marker, the Cabin was built in 1913 and is currently boarded up. The plans are in place to have this Cabin restored to its original beauty.
The second stop was at the Merritt Rock Cave, located on the River Right at 37°18'45.9"N 91°25'42.7"W which is little over half way mark between the Pulltite and Round Springs. Several of us decided to explore it but with cell phone lights being the only source of light, we were only able to explore first three bends of the path, and we agreed to have headlamps next time we were going to explore it deeper. There was a steady stream of freezing water running out of the cave and place was absolutely gorgeous.
These two stops and a quick lunch break prevented us from completing this track in three hours as originally planned, but it was all worth it. We were off the river by 4 PM. The group was blessed with cloudless skies and mild and cool temps.
Unfortunately, we did not capture the measurements from the water gauge, but our average speed was 2.35 mph, which was not bad considering the number of stops.