BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER

We drove from Austin, Texas and it was about a 12 hour drive from start to finish, including a a few stops for the restroom, lunch and gas. We rented two 15 passenger vans and we towed a trailer full of the troop's gear. It actually turned out to be an easy drive with four adults in each van, we switched drivers every 3 hours.

On our 55+ mile trek, we camped on the rocky beaches of the river. Our self-inflating Thermarest air mattresses turned out to be one of the most valuable gear items on the trip. When I say "rocky beach," I am putting the emphasis on "rocky." The rocks are fist-size and they cover almost the entire beach area. We found a few small sandy areas, but they were few and far between. Contrary to warnings I'd been given about the Buffalo River getting crowded in the summer, we never had another group camping on the beaches with us on any of our five nights. In fact, we only came across two other groups on the river the entire week.

We hauled our own water. Each canoe had a 5-gallon container of water. The only place we found to replenish was in the Maumee area on Day 3. There is a campground there, but it turned out to be a little hard to find because there is no signage and it is not visible from the river. The landing area was easy to see, but it is in front of a camp road that winds a meandering path to the campground which made it impractical to lug our gear over it and even less practical to try to carry full 50 lb water containers back to the canoes.

With a little exploration we found a short-cut on the river about 100' west of the campground entrance. We had to crawl up a steep but much shorter trail that led directly to the small campsite. Again, we were the only folks in the campsite. The luxury of a toilet, well water and picnic tables was a great luxury after 3 days roughing it. Luckily we did not camp on the beach that night and we tied up our canoes very thoroughly. The rain we experienced on Day 2 had not noticeably raised the river level by the time we landed, but the water level rose about 6' over night and then mostly subsided. The tail ends of our canoes were floating the next morning despite being hauled about 10' onto the landing beach the previous afternoon.

Traveling by canoe means having to winnow down your gear to the essential items plus the few luxury items you're willing to haul. Here's my gear checklist:

ESSENTIAL GEAR:

• Scaled river map
  
• Canoe seat with supported back, purchased from Cabella's $40
  
• Gloves (quick dry is the key (i.e. not leather, we used palm-padded bicycling gloves and they worked great)
  
• Dry bags, 1 jumbo and 2 large bags held all our gear. I think 2 jumbo and 1 large might be more practical because it was a tight fit.
  
• Tent with footprint & rain fly, and steel stakes
  
• Tent stake hammer
  
• Knife
  
• Self-inflating sleeping pad (I used 1.75" Thermarest with no problems)
  
• Sleeping bag in compression sack
  
• Flashlight & spare batteries (I prefer a headlamp)
  
• Canoe bailer (plastic gallon jugs cut to leave handle & about 4" of the bottom work great) tied to canoe with 4' parachute cord
  
• Gear cordage (we used 50' of parachute cord to secure gear in the event of capsizing)
  
• Bowline, not included with canoes so 6' nylon marine rope comes in handy when securing canoes along the shore
  
• 2.5 gallon zip locks to store clothing and anything else that should not get wet in case dry bag leaks
  
• Nalgene water bottles (get BPA free), they're unbreakable and the best for personal drinking water supply
  
• Sunscreen
  
• Hat
  
• Sun glasses
  
• Closed-toed shoes to wear on the river (water sandals or crox work fine)
  
• 2 pair of socks to wear with water shoes to avoid blisters, alternate each day so they completely dry
  
• Extra shoes that stay in dry bag while on the river
  
• 2 pair of socks that don't get wet
  
• Camp soap (biodegradable soap for river baths)
  
• Quick-dry towel
  
• Duct tape
  
• Waterproof matches or butane lighter
  
• Insect/mosquito spray
  
• Cat hole shovel and full roll of toilet paper per person (trust me)
  
• First-Aid kit, with mole skin and plenty of band-aids
  
• Fishing license (if you want to fish)

NOTES ABOUT ESSENTIAL GEAR:
Gloves are absolutely necessary. Your hands will get soft from the water and the paddle will give you blisters. Expensive canoe/kayak gloves are available, but synthetic fabric bicycle gloves with padded palms worked great and cost half as much and they worked fine for us. Some folks in our group removed their canoe seats to sit on rather than bringing camp stools or chairs. That's fine, as long as you don't mind sitting on the ground. A couple of folks brought nylon/aluminum folding chairs, which did not seem to be much of a burden and they seemed to enjoy them. I'm used to my camp stool, so I was fine without a full-size chair. Plus, my camp stool fit easily into my dry bag so it was always dry.

With regard to dry bags, 3 jumbo bags will fit easily into the canoe even with water and food stores. Also, our dry bags from Cabella's had zero leakage all week, but the zip lock baggies are still a great idea because it's extra protection and it helps in packing your clothing inside the dry bags. Socks are big. I recommend wearing socks with your water shoes because your feet stay wet and many folks on our trip who did not wear socks in the water got blisters. I had no blisters at all. It was hot in July along the river, I used parachute cord to secure a nalgene bottle that I floated in the river and it kept my drinking water nice and cold.

• Compression pillow (compresses to about the size of a football)
  
• Camp stool (fold up to telescope size, sold at REI for about $25)
  
• Water-proof camera
  
• Reading material
  
• Packets of Gator-Aid or sweetened Kool-Aid
  
• Fishing tackle
  
• Frisbee or Nerf football
  
• Playing cards

You need to take all the food and water you'll need with you from the launching point. There is no food to buy along the way (none, zero, zip, nada). We found one place to replenish our water between Gilbert and Buffalo City. Mark your map for the campground in the Maumee area. I suggest you take snacks for each day. Canoeing can be hard work and we got pretty hungry on the water, despite having hearty breakfasts and lunches. We packed dried fruit, nuts and M&Ms in baggies for each person each day, plus at least 4 granola bars per person per day on each canoe. That turned out to be more food than we needed, but just barely.

We found that a 1 liter bottle of water was enough for each person per day while we were on the river. But we had 5 gallon water containers on each canoe so we could fill up at lunch and again after we got off the river. The river water was cool-even in July--so dangling a nalgene bottle over the side of the canoe (secured by parachute cord) kept my water nice and cold. We also took packets of Gator-Aid and Kool-Aid because plain old water gets old when that's all you have. Those packets take up little room and they were a definite luxury .

FOOD & COOKING:
We hauled plastic action packers with food, camp stoves, propane, cooking gear. Each canoe had one action packer containing this stuff. We had 12 canoes (24 people) and we got by fine with 4 camp stoves.

CLOTHING:
I took 2 pair of quick-dry pants with removable leggings ($40 at REI), a bathing suit, 3 polyester (quick-dry) shirts, 2 cotton t-shirts, 4 pair of socks, 5 pair of underwear, bandana, baseball cap and that's it. I had plenty. Your feet will greatly appreciate dry socks and shoes at the end of the day.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
We never had a mosquito problem on the whole trip, but you never know. We had rain on two nights. Even on other nights, the humidity was enough that camping without the rain fly would have left me with wet gear in the morning. Set up your rain fly every night. One morning we had very strong wind gusts that blew two tents out of their small aluminum stakes so they were tumbling down the beach while we were having breakfast. Steel stakes are worth the few extra dollars.

We were on the river from July 19-26, 2009. Four out of six days on the river were perfect weather--in the 90's in the afternoon and it dropped down to the low 60's at night. We had light rain one day and a torrential down pour another day. We had very strong winds on the morning after the heavy down pour (actually pulled two tents off their stakes while we were having breakfast). The winds lasted about an hour or so, then returned to normal. It never felt too humid, but the tents had heavy dew each night so rain flies were always needed. Also, on the evening of the day of heavy rain, the water level rose about 6'. If we had not tied our canoes to trees, they probably would have drifted off. The water level dropped as quickly as it rose so water levels were almost back to normal by the morning. As always, you need to be careful about camping next to rivers--especially during or after a heavy rain. It takes a while for the run off from surrounding areas to empty into the river, so always expect river levels to rise significantly after rain in the area.

There is virtually no cell phone coverage along the river between Gilbert and Buffalo City. We tried each day to get a cell signal but we had no luck (using Sprint, AT&T and Verizon phones). There is a weak cell signal at the campground in Gilbert, but we had to search for "the spot." There is a much better signal in Buffalo City. GPS coverage along the way was fine. With clear skies on most days the GPS was able to get a fix on at least 3 satellites. I'd still recommend taking a cell phone with you on the river. Just leave it off so the battery does not drain. In the event of an emergency, it may be possible to get at least a weak signal by climbing to higher ground.

We ended our trek in Buffalo City. There's a small park there and we took a look around while waiting for the outfitters to pick us up. We actually went looking for cold drinks since we had not had ice or anything cold in a week. That's when we found the White Buffalo Resort. It's basically an RV park with cabins, but they have a small convenience store with cold drinks and ice! We each chugged a couple of cold root beers and we hauled a few bags of ice back to the rest of the crew. But while we were there, we took showers in their community restrooms (which were spotlessly clean) and we lounged on their covered patio beneath a ceiling fan. I could have fallen asleep there. Then it was about an hour and a half drive back to Gilbert.