Buffalo River float season long, profitable this year

PRUITT -- Mike Mills, owner of Buffalo Outdoor Center, used to have a saying.

"'We'll rest in July' is what we usually tell ourselves," Mills said. "This year, not only did we not get to rest in July, we'll be lucky to rest in August."

But Mills wasn't complaining. The float season on the upper section of the Buffalo National River, which unofficially begins mid-March with many schools' spring break, typically peters out before the Fourth of July. But after a winter of unusually high snowfall and a spring and summer of steady rainfall, the "float season" is only now approaching its end for the upper Buffalo.

Each spring, when snow throughout the river's watershed begins to melt, water levels in the upper Buffalo swell, then gradually make their way downstream toward the river's confluence with the White River in Baxter County. As the season progresses, water levels in the uppermost portions of the river gradually become too low to successfully float a canoe, or even a kayak, without dragging the craft across long stretches of river rocks.

"We can't put people in at Ponca anymore this year, but it was the longest continuous canoe season in my history, which is 41 years," Mills said.

Mills said his business was typically renting 40 to 50 canoes and kayaks most weekdays throughout the season, and "maxing out" each weekend with rentals of all 199 craft for which the business holds a permit.

The Buffalo Outdoor Center is one of more than 20 outfitters to hold permits for canoes, kayaks and rafts from the National Park Service for the Buffalo National River. And while the long season has been a boon to those concessionaires, it also has meant increased traffic for other businesses, such as rental cabins and restaurants throughout the area.

Michael Dougherty, president of the Buffalo River Chamber of Commerce, said that every time it rained, traffic on the chamber's website would spike and reservations at local lodging would follow.

"You could almost tell the weather report to look at the Web data," Dougherty said. "Whenever it was rainy, the Web data would pick up, and there wasn't a cabin to be found in the upper river area."

Dougherty said the chamber's website, which was established about four years ago, received its 1 millionth unique visitor around the middle of July.

"All the way through the float season, we were rumbling along at a rate of 1 million page views a year," he said.

While the 2014 float season has been a profitable one, outfitters know any given year isn't necessarily an indicator of the next year's profitability.

"We can never anticipate another season like this," Mills said. He said much of the additional revenue his business had taken in will be paid toward the principal on the commercial loan that originally funded the outdoor center. He also plans to put some toward repairs on lodgings and the replacement of aging canoes.

Brad Wimberly, owner of the Turner Bend Store, the chief outfitter on the Mulberry River in Franklin County, said his business was still recovering from 2012, when low rainfalls made for a short and unpredictable float season.

"I think everybody took a financial hit that year," Wimberly said. "I haven't bought new canoes in two or three years -- part of that is that Royalex canoes haven't been available, and part of it is cash flow. [This season] is going to enable us to refresh our fleet as soon as some new canoes are available, and replace the kayaks, which are all getting old, and maybe replace one of the vans, and hopefully have a little cash stashed away, in case next year is like 2012 was.

"It doesn't mean you go out and give yourself a raise, or issue a dividend, it just means it's a little bit of catch-up."

NW News on 08/17/2014