A little green heron stood on a piling and watched as four women in kayaks set out on the Little Maumelle River.
Annie Ross, a retired fourth-grade teacher in a borrowed red boat, was trying kayaking for the first time. Justine Baker, in her yellow kayak, was doing one of the things she does in the world, which is going into nature and taking other folks along. Gayelynn Quigley had kayaked before but was making her first voyage in a newly bought green and white boat, and her first trip on this river. A woman in a blue boat went along to take notes with her camera.
It was a lot like going hiking on a partial stretch of a longer trail, out and back, except these Little Rock residents were floating, not walking.
The Little Maumelle River Water Trail runs 8.2 miles, starting from a boat ramp in Pinnacle Mountain State Park and ending at Two Rivers Park, where it gives itself to the Arkansas River. It's the newest of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's nine established water trails.
Paddling on this river offers a sense of direction, certainty, comforting confinement. You can't really get lost; you're going upstream or downstream. Or maybe down a scenic cul-de-sac between the backyards of a fancy neighborhood, which can be done if you veer off the mapped trail.
But this river also offers lakelike opportunities for exploring. The water is often so calm that there's no discernible current. There are islands to navigate around, detours and cul-de-sacs popular with fisherpeople. There are choices: the wide channel or a narrow path through water lilies that look like tiny papasan chairs? Boaters can practice maneuvering skills by making an obstacle course of the thick zones of cypress trees in some stretches of the river.
The river's beauty and hidden-in-plain-sight location made it a good choice to become a designated Arkansas Water Trail, said Kirsten Bartlow, Watchable Wildlife coordinator at the commission. "The Little Maumelle River is a beautiful area here in central Arkansas that provides great wildlife viewing and fishing opportunity. And it's so close to town, already has nice public access points and is a wonderful little stream for beginners.
"Importantly for us, it also has ideal partners to help maintain the trail and its launch areas." The state park, city, county and the Arkansas Canoe Club help to maintain the trail route.
Unlike a hiking trail, though, or a water trail on a bayou or lake, this trail isn't blazed.
"Trail blazes are used on trails where there is the potential to get lost because of flooded timber," Bartlow explained. "We don't use blazes when the path is distinct. We want people to enjoy themselves and feel safe but do not want to take away from the wild experience by over-signing an area."
The wild experience begins with the glorious moment of shoving off land onto a river or lake, the transition from solid ground to floating, when you suddenly feel nothing but water beneath you. It's an ahhhhh moment, and Ross had not felt it before that Saturday morning.
"I loved the experience of being on the river, although I was kind of pitiful at it, but that was my first time," said Ross, 68. "I loved the tranquility of the river. It was peaceful."
Her presence there was "a very chancy thing." She was shopping in Kroger one day when Baker hailed her and asked whether she wanted to go kayaking.
"I had never considered it until she brought it up. I thought, 'Well, maybe I could do it.' I'm not very flexible. I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to sit in the thing and stretch my legs out," until she learned it had footrests.
When Ross got on the river, "I found it relaxing because we weren't hurried," she said. "I had to figure out how to do the strokes. I didn't know how to turn the boat. I had to play around with it to kind of figure it out. It wasn't that hard."
It wasn't that hard. A few minutes into the float, she was going in circles. Less than two hours later, she was confidently threading that narrow seam among the water lilies.
You can't step in the same river twice, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote.
Maybe the river is different, sparkling on a hot, sunny day, muted on a cool, overcast day. Festive when you're on a float trip, contemplative when it's just you and the waterbirds. High and swift after days of heavy rains, low and still as a pond after weeks of no rains. That water you step in today will be miles downstream tomorrow.
Or maybe you're the one who's different.
"I'm a high-strung person, Type A, who doesn't know how to relax. I have found that this is something that I truly love," said Quigley, who works part time for an acupuncturist. The Little Maumelle River Water Trail is her new happy place. She can make the trip from her busy, bustling neighborhood to the water's edge in 15 minutes.
"It's helped me tremendously to relax," she said. "Just sitting in the shade and talking, it has brought that out in me, and getting to meet people."
On a land hike, the trail might be only a few feet wide. On a water trail, paddlers can drift and still be together. "If you don't want to visit, you can have that quiet time," she said. "I think that's a real big selling point."
"What the river says, that's what I say," the poet William Stafford wrote.
The four boats and their people made their way around curves and through straightaways, narrower spots and wide-open spots. They gave respectful distance to a river-crossing snake and a wasp nest hanging from a cypress. They paused to watch herons and white egrets.
Other days, in a cove near the river's landmark of white water mains passing overhead, there's a herd of Canada geese, so much more like a corps of ballerinas on the water than they are on land. Turtles line up on logs in order of size, as if for a school picture.
Quigley has been on the river at least four more times since her first trip. She has even seen deer. A favorite spot is where the foursome on the float trip paused for a water and snack break, with the familiar shape of Pinnacle Mountain in view. "When you get to Pinnacle, that's what it's all about, to see the mountain, and it looks like you can touch it," she said. That boat she was test-driving was a keeper, a vehicle into "the freedom and beauty of nature. Raw nature, not in a campsite."
EASY ACCESS
She puts in where we all did that day, at a boat ramp on private property. The owner provides a black box for people to pay a $5 fee on the honor system. Maps will call it Burnett Road, but the road sign where it begins at Pinnacle Valley Road gives it a more poetic name, more what than who: Sweetwater Cove.
Multiple access points are a bonus on this river, Game and Fish's Bartlow said. "Like other flat-water paddles, the Little Maumelle does not require a shuttle vehicle, which is a real perk. Put in at any access point and paddle out and then return-paddle to your vehicle. There are times you'll need to get out and pull your boat up through some riffles near Pinnacle Mountain State Park."
When she moved to Little Rock in 2000, the river was one of the first places Bartlow explored by boat. "I was, and continue to be, charmed by how near it is to town but what a neat wild experience you can have out there. It's a great place to see migratory songbirds, waterfowl, wading birds, osprey, beavers, turtles -- and the list goes on.
"One of my most memorable fishing experiences happened on the Little Maumelle last summer. I hooked a really large gar that proceeded to drag me and my little red canoe all over the place. The fish got away, but I have the memories of me laughing and hollering through the whole process."
Ross, the retired schoolteacher, is considering investing in a boat, too. She tried an inflatable boat, but it wasn't right for her. She's studied YouTube videos to see whether she could load a boat atop her car alone. She's still floating on the beauty of the birds and the wildflowers. "I was quite excited for days afterwards," she said. "I told a lot of my friends."
Three hours after the green heron, a white egret stood on the piling and watched as four women in kayaks returned to land, their legs heavy, their hearts light.
For more information about the state's water trails, especially the paddling laws and ethics for self-powered boaters on Arkansas' waterways, visit agfc.com and search for "water trails."
Pinnacle Mountain State Park occasionally takes people on the river. Fall Canoe Floats are scheduled for Oct. 5 and 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., beginning at the park's Little Maumelle River boat ramp. The $40 fee includes canoe rental, and people can register by calling (501) 868-5806.
ActiveStyle on 09/08/2014