1986 Pecos River Canoe Trip

Ed Waley, Mike Sanders, Willie Dan Rowell and I paddled and pulled our canoes for four days on the Pecos River. Put in at Pandale crossing and planned to take-out at Amistad boat ramp at Hwy 90. Ran short on time and got out at the weir dam just above Lake Amistad.

Putting in the canoes at Pandale crossing.....the guy in the straw hat was from Comstock and I had made arrangements with him to ride with us to the put-in spot and then keep my pickup until time to meet us at the take-out in five days. 

That's Mikeee - Each of us paddled solo with our own personal equipment and supplies. We started out being super cautious at the rapids then got a feel for it and started running the them at speed.

First night on a small island in the river.... I got up in the middle of the night and impaled my foot on a pointed stump of a sand bar willow. I would be hobbling for the next couple of days.

 

 

Take note of the hat....It would become intregal part of the trip

 

How far  to the spring?

 

The farther we go, the prettier it gets

The second night was spent on this flat shelf on rock... Just about sunset, a rattlesnake swam across the river to join us at our camp... We didn't want to share our camp with him so he had to die and when I decided to flip the lifeless body into the river, it accidentally slid off my stick prematurely and landed on Mikeeee....

 

 

I climbed the bluff to get this shot of the other guys on the river

Check out the clarity of the water

We had to portage this rock pile

 

Sunset on the third night

 

One set of rapids after another

 

Where the river was deep and quiet we saw large flathead catfish and gar

 

 

Climbed the cliff to get this shot of the canoes

 

When we reached the weir dam,  it was obvious that we weren't going to make the take-out point the next day. This was before cell phones so we had no way to communicate with the guy that had my pickup. The only way to get the pickup was to walk to the highway and hitch a ride to a pay phone and call the guy that had the pickup. I took a lot of twists and turns to get the truck but I did finally got it. Lost my hat in a trade for a ride. After all kinds of maneuvering and a lot of luck, I managed to drive right up to the top of the bluff above the dam.  It was a tough haul to get everything up the bluff but we were loaded and off the ranch before dark.