By Roy Tryon

USGS Gauge Reading: 3.43 feet
Lake Murray Discharge: 1,140 cubic feet/second
Tempature: Low to mid-50s
Put-In: Hope Ferry Landing
Take-Out: Gardendale Landing (aka Radio Towers)
Total Distance Paddled: Approx. 6.44 miles


The Palmetto Paddlers' (PP) first official/announced 2004 flat-water trip included Joe and Sherry, Gregory, Sheila, Pam, Andy, Brian, Dennis and Nicole, Tom, and Roy (trip leader). All paddled kayaks. We met at Hope Ferry Landing (HFL) at 11:00 am and, after taking the vehicles to Gardendale Landing (GL), got on the water at 12:20 pm. It was a very pleasant 51 degrees at that point, and the water was low and slow enough for us to paddle upstream to near the Lake Murray Dam without difficulty. Nicole reassured Dennis about her ability to handle the upstream paddling, letting him know that she could do anything he could. And she did. For Andy, the important thing was that it was not raining (he had enough time in the rain in Vietnam to last him a lifetime) and for Greg it was an opportunity to take his first trip with PP.

We managed to go around the first riffle upstream by paddling to the right of an island. Unfortunately, the channel did not allow us to paddle entirely around the island and into the mainstream. Low water required a portage. Roy was first out of his boat, looking forward to another enjoyable portage experience. The others followed after failed efforts to paddle through. Joe, who normally would go to great lengths to avoid a portage, followed Roy's lead for once.

Back on the river, and about fifty or more yards above the first riffle, Roy pointed out a bald eagle's nest in a tall pine tree to the right. (He had spotted the eagle returning to the nest with a beak full of pine straw when he scouted the upriver route earlier in the morning.) Though the group failed to see any more than the nest, they did later spot several great blue herons and kingfishers. We negotiated the second and final riffle upstream by conducting another portage (including Joe) and arrived just outside the Lake Murray Dam water discharge station about 1:10 pm.

As is usual on the PP's flat-water trips, we lingered there for what, to a "type A personality," would seem like an hour. We chatted and watched the dam construction activity underway before us. Dump trucks and concrete mixers passed to and fro, and there was other earth moving equipment off to the left. We turned around, eventually, and on the way back decided to paddle down the channel to the right just before the (now) first riffle, and followed it to the end, literally a wall of stones/boulders. Off to the left proved to be a good spot for lunch. We pulled our boats in about 1:40 pm.

Lunch was leisurely. We benefited from Sherry's chocolate chip cookies: it would be a pitiful trip, indeed, without the baked goods she prepares and brings to share. Tom pronounced to the group that he had something special, the new Snickers Marathon bar. At the word Snickers, just about everyone's attention was drawn to Tom. Knowing Roy's addiction to Snickers, Tom offered him a piece. At first Roy declined, as he was trying to wean himself from the candy. He finally broke down as Tom convinced him (without any apparent resistance) that it was really an energy bar and contained "grain." That was all Roy needed to justify breaking off a good size piece. The weather really seemed to warm up and several of us talked about taking off some of our heavier tops, but decided not to. We lamented that we lacked spray paint to daub the large boulders nearby with the new PP logo. After a group photo by Pam, we pushed off for the down river trip at 2:15 pm.

The group took a route across the river to the far bank to bypass the first riffle. Roy, on the other hand, chose to paddle the riffle and was soon stuck on its rocks in shallow water. He eventually was able to scoot and push off to get moving again and rejoin the group. We passed through the center of the second riffle downstream with ease. A guy fishing there had caught twelve "small" trout since morning, mostly on Griffith Gnat dry flies.

We reached HFL around 2:40 pm and continued downstream for the estimated three and one-half miles to GL. It was a very pleasant trip, with three additional riffles, none of which were difficult to negotiate. We did, however, meet two young fellows in a Mohawk canoe, who had earlier turned over and were paddling hard to keep warm. By that time, the sky was very cloudy and the temperature seemed a good deal cooler than it had been at lunch when we discussed how warm it was getting. Still, the temperature was great for January. Roy scouted up Corley Creek (to the right) after passing up Rawls Creek near Saluda Shoals Park. Though the creek was passable for a considerable distance, Roy thought it was getting too shallow to justify taking the detour.

We paddled on, enjoying the scenery and the mayfly hatch in progress that Sheila brought to our attention. Surprisingly, we did not see any rising trout and Brian did not have a chance during the trip to use his spinning rod, which he had strapped to the back of his kayak. We arrived at Gardendale Landing at 3:45 pm, happy that the weather was so pleasant (then at 52 degrees), without rain, and that the water level/discharge had held steady throughout the paddle down the Lower Saluda River.

View Slide Show