Paddling the Niobrara River, and Smith Falls

 

On Saturday, after organizing a bit and moving some boats around, we headed for the put in at the Fort Niobrara Wildlife refuge. We got on the water about 10 AM, with eleven people and seven boats. We took a brief hike to Fort Falls, and when we got back to our boats, we saw a lady in her kayak, towing a submerged kayak. Richard headed over to help, and we were able to get most of the water out. We took the kayak to shore. The occupant of the kayak was walking on the shore, but was on the opposite side of the river. We took a canoe over to ferry him across the river. They paddled with us for a while.

Fort Falls

We continued paddling until we found a lunch spot. We conti­nued on, with the winds increasing. The river is pretty and shallow in many places, with a rock bottom in the shallow spots. When we got to Smith Falls, we pulled the boats out of the water, and ran the drivers back to the put in. We announced we would serve ice cream at 7 PM, and everyone showed up. We had a nice group and some nice conversation.

On Sunday, we dropped some vehicles at Sunnybrook camp, and then came back to Smith Falls to start our paddle. The paddle was scenic; we had a bit of rain in the morning, and sun in the afternoon. We had lunch on a sand bar. We saw osprey, a great blue heron, a group of buzzards in a tree, and a bald eagle. We got off the river about three PM. We again had ice cream at 7; Kit bought wood for a fire. We swapped stories around the fire until 9 PM.

Monday we slept in, and drove to the Fur Trade Museum in Chadron, the best museum of its kind in the world.  We then headed for Chadron State Park.  The park looked nice, but we had some trouble finding a campsite that our rig would fit into; the campground host was nice and helped us find a spot.  Tuesday we drove home, using a Circle Tours booklet, which described the points of interest.   We stopped in Dalton at the Round Robin bar, with an early junkyard decor.  We saw Courthouse Rock and Jailhouse Rock,  and made a stop in Potter at the Tin Roof Soda Fountain.  The folks in Potter are working hard to make their town attractive and fun; Dalton was kind of dead, but had an old fire truck for sale.