cb3725
Senior Member
We left Atlanta with a light snow coming down and temperatures fallen into the 30's - relatively cold for late February in North Georgia. My good friend Jeff and I were headed south on I-75 with a destination in the southeast corner of the state: Okefenokee Swamp. There, we had booked a trip with local outfitter Okefenokee Adventures for a three day paddle along some of the canoe routes criss-crossing the expansive refuge.
Arriving at the refuge entrance outside Folkston, GA, we met our bearded guide, Chip Campbell, who turned out to be a real character. He and his wife own the outfitting and guide service there, and he entertained us the entire trip with his extensive knowledge of everything from swamp flora to local lore to current TV series to conservation practices! His enthusiasm for the creatures there and the swamp itself was clearly evident, and he managed to impart a whole lot of knowledge in just a couple of days. My favorite laid back line of the trip from him was "Everyone experiences the swamp in their own way." I can't say enough how much we enjoyed the conversation and commentary from Chip. He's a one of a kind guide. This is the Okefenokee Adventures office, cafe, and shop and the starting point for excursion into the swamp from the east side.
The paddling began as we left the civilization of the gift shop and retail area, turning from plush alligator toys to the hopes of finding the real deal. This initial nine miles of water is the Suwanee Canal, also known as the Orange Trail if you're looking at the canoe trail map. This stretch is wide open and was a good place to practice a bit of paddling before hitting the swamp in earnest. If you look at the pictures to follow, it's hard to see just how black that water is, and if you scoop up a handful, it's actually a dark tinted amber, like a light wood stain. But staring down into it, that water looks as black as the night sky, perfectly reflective and concealing anything that might be hiding out beneath the surface. In fact, it's hard not to think of all the thinks that might be down there when your're starting out.
This is one of the trail junctions. If I recall, this is where the Blue and Orange Trails intersect, and the old Yellow Trail used to start. We veered right, staying on the Orange Trail. Did I mention the cold we left in Atlanta? It was around 70 this first day in the swamp. Beautiful sky too.
A few things about the water itself surprised me, but particularly how glassy and reflective it was caught us off guard. Chip explained how back in the cross Atlantic sailing days, blackwater was valued because the high tannic acid content makes it inhospitable for many microbe varieties. As such, they would sail up blackwater rivers to gather the water, store it, and drink it on the return journey. The acid allows the water to stay clean longer, and also make it somewhat safer to drink when compared to even clear mountain water that is associated with water purity.
Birds were abundant. Herons where everywhere, and a couple of cranes made an appearance on the first day. Cranes are an attraction because of their relative rarity, and I believe they were the first I've ever seen.
This picture was taken off the back of the shelter at Coffee Bay, with Bugaboo Island being somewhere nearby off to the west. We stopped at this shelter to eat a good lunch, and I'll say here that if you book a trip with OA, you're not going to be hungry! As a backpacker, I am used to subsistence eating - sardines, saltines, maybe a bagel with peanut butter - but these guys do it right. We had hamburgers, jambalaya, pasta, burritoes... it was phenomenal! And of course, food just tastes better when you eat it outside.
At this junction, we paddled off the canal through one of the many tempting openings off to the sides. Jeff and I kept commenting to each other how it seemed as if a person could probably spend a lifetime exploring openings to the large expansive areas that were often visible between the trees lining the canal. We paddled past a lot of good looking fishy water, and if I'd been on my own, I'd have been moving pretty slow to fish all of the likely looking spots. Speaking of fishing, I decided to go simple for this trip and brought just the collapsible pole, a few yard of line, and a little tin of hooks, bobbers, and worms. I figured, I've enjoyed fishing with the pole instead of a rod and reel, but this would give me a chance to use it exclusively and see what I thought. More on that later, but the only fishermen we ran into on this trip just happened to be fishing the same way, with simple little telescoping poles to drop bait at the base of the cypress trees. I guess that's still a popular method there. and it makes sense with all of the surface cover and dense thicket surrounding.
Chip paused at the opening of Chase Prairie to demonstrate the old method of cruising across the swampy prairies by using a push pole. I've seen this technique used by the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School, and man was it faster cutting across the areas with dense underwater growth than paddling.
This wasn't the first gator we ran across, but it was the first one that I got a moderately sharp photo of. Day one was beautiful but must have been borderline too cool, because we only saw a few.
At the end of the twelve miles, we made camp at the Round Top shelter with a beautiful 360 degree view of the swamp prairie. I tell you what, I've seen some pretty sunsets out west, but this was was long and the colors spectacular. It was great food for dinner, and then a good few hours getting to know our trip mates on the raised platform there in the middle of the swamp.
Since this was a longer outing for me, and I couldn't help photographing quite a few highlights, I'm going to break this into a multi-part report. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 as I get the photos organized!
