THREE DAY TRIP

On September 14th 2009 five Canoe Livery workers, "Outdoorsmen" Wayne, "Joe, TackleBox Rodney, Randy, and myself (Professional Canoe Handler Shane) set sale from the Canoe Livery with the intent to make it the Ohio River. For those of who do not know the Hocking River is a contributary to the Ohio River. I would estimate the Hocking River to around 140 miles, starting from Lancaster and concluding in the town of Hockingport. Since the Canoe Livery is roughly 20 miles south of the start of the river, we would be canoeing an estimated 120 miles to the Ohio River. Truth be said our experience with the river south of the Canoe Livery was limited. All of our trips conclude at the Canoe Livery so there is less opportunity to canoe south. Anyways the point is we started the trip with no idea how long it would take to canoe 120 miles. We gave ourselves a three day window to reach the Ohio River.




Our primary objective was to reach Hockingport, but we picked a few other towns upstream incase we were unable to reach our goal. We wanted to reach the Ohio River, in reality we were just happy to spend three days on the river.




As it turns we were way off in our prediction of making it to the Ohio River in three days. We canoed around 8-10 hours each day and by the 3rd day we had only reached Athens. Athens was a midpoint between the Canoe Livery and Hockingport, leaving us an estimated 60 miles to reach the Ohio River. We ended up calling it a trip about 10 miles south of Athens. We found a nice place to set up camp and a good destination for someone to pick us up in the morning.





The first day was awesome. We started out around 10:30 canoeing past the old Falls Mill Bridge. The section of the river is one of highlights of the entire river. We canoed until about 6:30 and camped probably 10 miles north of the Nelsonville. I would guess we did about 20 miles that day. The great thing about canoeing with a bunch of outdoor guys is that once we decided to stop for the night everyone did their part to get the camp going. For example Wayne and Rodney immediately started gathering wood, Randy got the fire going and began fixing dinner, (he made chilli which was excellent), Joe and I set up the tent.



There is no doubt in my mind that the highlight of the second night was where we camped. It beautiful sandbar stretching about 400 yards of clean sand and gravel. I believe it was the best sandbar on the entire river. Tacklebox, Randy, and Wayne would probably mention a highlight of the second day was eating squriell for dinner. Tacklebox had shot two squriells along the river and we ended having them for dinner. That was the first time I had eaten squriell (and probably the last)






Unfortunately, the worst part of the second day was canoeing past Nelsonville. I believe that the Hocking River is a clean river with a healthy eco-system. However, It was a little dissappointing to notice the drop in waeater quality once we entered the Nelsonville area. We passed a sign that stated (and I'm paraphrasing) "Warning swimming in the river can be hazardous to your health because of local sewage run-offs." The sign is unacceptable, something should be done instead of reasoning that a sign will fix the sewage into the river problem.


The third was our intended "lazy day" We were canoeing past Athens. In the 1980's the river was rerouted to keep the town from flooding. The river was dredged to almost three times its orginal width. Whether dredging the river was a good idea remains a great debate to this day. The river looks more like a shallow lake. There are no trees along the bank and the river is only about one foot deep in most places.

The three day was great. We are thinking of offering this three day trip next year to our customers.