Distance: 7 miles.
Time: about four hours.

After two PP trips being canceled because of bad weather the previous weekends, those who came on the Cedar Creek trip got perfect weather. Yes, the early morning temps had dropped to near freezing, but by the time we got on the water a few minutes before 11 it had warmed up and after a few minutes of paddling we were all toasty. The water level was just about perfect, the upper sections clear and the bed green with waving eel grass.

Everyone arrived on time, 10 a.m. Jeffrey, Ron, Wayne, Marcus, Greg, Jonathan, Susan and Carol. A good size for this trip.

We had a couple of canoes, one big, one small, some long and some short kayaks. Mostly we had a really good group of people and a very nice day – as only a sunny winter day in the Congaree Swamp National Park can be. And many of us had rarely or never paddled together so we got to know one another – how heating an MRE can look like praying, how to build a plywood kayak, how many people it takes to comfortably carry and 80-pound canoe.

As anyone who has paddled the creek knows, the upper portion is fairly narrow and winding and we all had our share of close calls with tree limbs and snags. Then we got into the downed trees. There were six or seven on the trip, but fortunately none of them were in really terrible spots. We all did get pretty muddy – the bottom of Jonathan’s canoe looked kind of like a mud spa when we finished. But only one person fell in and it wasn’t too bad except we were pretty sure the mud monsters were going to hold his feet tight. What made the portages bearable is that everyone was so helpful to one another – that’s also why no one else fell in. I’ve rarely been on a trip where such cooperation was in evidence.

The first half of the trip because of the portages and winding steam was fairly slow going, but who is in a rush when it’s so nice out?

We stopped at the bridge by Wise Lake for lunch, where we discovered it wasn’t quite as warm as we thought. Once we stopped exercising we noticed it was still chilly. But we took our time watching Wayne chomp down hot ravioli as we ate our peanut butter. The second half of the trip was much the same, but with bigger water and more leisurely paddling. Just about perfect. Although we didn’t see much wildlife, the signs of spring were all around in the budding trees.

We came upon the end a little earlier than we expected around 3:30 p.m. Total time of the trip was a little more than four hours, but we took nearly an hour for lunch. Good time with all the carry overs. With the additional mud all the boats weighed a little more at the end than the start – at least they felt heavier.

Putting in and taking out around the same time we did was a group of paddlers from the Upstate and North Carolina who told us about some paddling events coming up there in just a couple of weeks. They said they'd pass the information about it along to put on our web site.