My county paper map of the Blackwood River shows a clear blue line running straight through the public forest. I drove out there last Tuesday afternoon. The map obviously does not show the massive oak tree that fell across the water sometime last winter.
I put my boat in at the concrete boat ramp under the highway overpass. The parking lot was totally empty except for an abandoned grocery cart. The water is deep brown and moves very slowly right at the launch. I paddled upstream for about forty five minutes against a mild current. I saw two turtles sitting on a log and nothing else. Then the river just stopped. A rotting oak tree completely blocked the channel from one muddy bank to the other. Thick branches dragged in the water and caught huge piles of dead leaves.
I thought about getting out and pulling my kayak over the trunk. I dragged the nose of the boat onto the bark and immediately slipped on a patch of wet green moss. I almost went into the water backward. The mosquitoes were already swarming my face because the air was completely still behind the tree. I had packed bug spray but I left it sitting in the cup holder of my car.
I sat there for ten minutes and ate a slightly crushed peanut butter granola bar. I watched a spider rebuild its web between two dead branches. Then I turned the boat around and drifted back to the overpass. The current did most of the work on the way down. The trip was a lot shorter than I originally planned.