The New Bateman Trail- Beware

6/18/13

The Bateman Canoe Trail

            John, four others and myself did the Bateman Section with the purpose of determining which trail (new or old) provides the best passage through the open swamp known as the “Grasslands”. The river was up to above 9 feet at LaGrange with a silty brown color from the thunderstorms of the previous day. The skies were overcast and threatening rain, but the temps were comfortably in the mid 70s. Following my weather superstition, I left my sunglasses at home to keep the thunderstorms away. In my mind if there is a 50/50 chance of storms and I am not prepared for sun, then the sun will shine. It worked, as we had a sunny afternoon.

            When we reached the grasslands, John and I went right onto the new trail, and the others followed the old trail to the left. Except for a glimpse, we didn’t see the other paddlers until the take out.

            For the most part, the new trail was easily navigable and well marked with orange tape.  We passed through areas of open swamp with bands of cypress trees. One of the cypress groves was particularly appealing because the bases of the trees were not crowded with undergrowth. We followed the current around the trunks of the soaring bald cypress trees. The trail began to widen as rivulets combined to form a large tributary. Clearly, the waters of the Wolf had shifted to this area. We floated easily down the new channel and were convinced that we had it made. We assumed that we could follow the fast moving tributary and rejoin the main Wolf channel with ease. I knew this was too easy, and I was proven corrected when our channel emptied into a large open morass. The water was still flowing but it now spread out into a tight weave of spatterdock, arrowhead plants and razor grass. John described the spatterdock as an, “uncooperative little plant”.  It doesn’t have thorns or poison, but a solid mass of the plants can stop a canoe.  The combination of plants was more difficult to traverse than the regions of only spatterdock. I had pushed through spatterdock with ease when it had crowed canoe trails on other parts of the river. However, this green matrix of stems, leaves and blades created an extremely difficult passage. Our progress slowed to the dreaded pace of a hundred yards per hour. We also lost sight of the orange trail tape. I spotted marker in the distance. We struggled to reach it only to find that the faded tape and yellow blaze marked the boundary TWRA “land”.  With no trail markers or open channels, we pushed towards the tree line that marked the main channel of the Wolf River. We found it difficult to paddle sitting down, so we continued to paddle from a standing position. I was uneasy at first but soon gained enough confidence to walk back and forth in order to slide my boat over submerged obstacles. As we continued, we found it necessary to get out and pull our boats forwards. The plant life was so thick that paddling was no longer possible and wading was extremely difficult. The water depth alternated from a few inches to thigh deep, and the thick mesh of razor grass cut my bare arms and legs. When I was within 20 yards of the tree line, I saw the other paddlers through the trees. However, I failed to signal them. Luckily, we found a small tributary that finally led us to the main channel of the Wolf. After floating a hundred yards or so down the river, I spotted the orange tape on the right bank that indicated the tributary that we should have followed.

            The new trail shows promise and will eventually be the best passage through the Bateman Section. However as of right now, it is very easy to become lost in the great morass. If we had kept bearing right, we may have found the tributary that would have taken us out of the swamp. For the most part the trail is easy to follow, but one could easily become lost towards the end. We surmised that this area was not as overgrown when the trail was originally founded. The others in our group reported that they had a long portage on the old trail, but it was not overgrown. I would expect the old trail to be dry land in the near future.

            Wildlife sighted on this day included prothornortary  warbler, pileated woodpeckers, a great blue heron nest, a night heron and a pair of bald eagles soaring high above. We could tell that they were probably eagles because we could not see their tails (presumably the tails were not visible since they are white and white does not show up well against a backdrop of clouds).