Canoeing down Sugar CreekCanoeing down Sugar CreekFloating along: People in tubes float down Sugar Creek on July 20 through the sandstone formations of Turkey Run State Park, just downstream from the suspension bridge that allows visitors to the park access to some of the best geological formations in Indiana. (Tribune-Star photo/Jim Avelis)
Summer fun: Canoes, kayaks and tubes float down Sugar Creek into Turkey Run State Park on July 20 (above). Shane Buntain (below, right) of Terre Haute, leaps from the rocks just below the Narrows Bridge over Sugar Creek. The spot, just off a county road, is popular with tourists and local residents. (Tribune-Star photos/Jim Avelis)
Canoe trip down Sugar
Creek offers lessons on the sport - and life
By Jamie Lewis Hedges
Special to the Tribune-Star
I organize outdoor recreational trips. I organized a trip this summer for the Office of Recreational Sports at Indiana State University. It was a canoeing trip to Sugar Creek.It is interesting to me that in my travels around this state, there seems to be no shortage of Sugar Creeks. Apparently every county has one. I grew up hiking with my dad along a Sugar Creek, and it seems that everyone I talk to did as well. That information is free to you as the reader, but not worth remembering.
There is one thing I want to remember about this trip.
The Sugar Creek of our adventure runs through Montgomery and Parke counties linking Shades and Turkey Run State Parks consecutively. Granted, this is not the old growth of the Pacific Range, but it is some of the prettiest area in central Indiana. Along Sugar Creek, there is a picturesque variety of sandstone cliffs and ravines shaded by the growth of white pine and hemlock trees. Sugar Creek and the topography surrounding it was formed by the action of the glaciers at the end of the ice age, as the melting waters ground debris against the sandstone.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
Starting at Shades
On the morning of June 26, we began the trip with six Old Town Discovery Canoes at an entry point beneath Deer Mill Covered Bridge, 15 miles downstream from Crawfordsville. This is very near the northeast boundary of Shades State Park. The canoes we used were our own. There is no shortage of canoe liveries in this area, however, where nearly anyone can rent a canoe for a little less than $30.
While one of the participants and I stationed a vehicle at Cox Ford bridge -- our destination 13 miles away -- the others loaded the water vessels with stoves, tents, bedrolls, clothing, a Dutch oven, coolers stuffed with food, and other gear all secured to the canoes with rope or bungee cords. I returned to find that they had all been gracious enough to load the canoe I would be paddling solo with the same amount of gear, if not more, that they had in their own tandem canoes. I swear I was underwater for the first leg of the trip!
The first 2.75 miles to Shades State Park Canoe Camp was interesting. We followed the current south away from the entry point and then generally northwest flanked by the cliffs of Shades State Park over which the Miami Indians had once walked. Two paddling couples were less than proficient and were successful in making great circles from one side of the creek to the other. After mastering this feat, they became quite proficient at going down river backward.
I parked my canoe and waded out to give them my professional instruction. After several times of doing this, I realized my instruction was not so effective. One of the other canoes returned up creek. This member of our party proved to be an excellent instructor and spent a lot of time teaching the others efficient paddling techniques.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
We crossed the line into Parke County and a little over a half-mile later, an hour and a half after entering the creek, we arrived at the campground. The leading canoes nearly missed the large but darkly painted sign on river left directly across from Pedestal Rock on river right. Having seen it, they flagged the rest of us into this landing connected by a path to a campsite down hill from the backcountry campsite at Shades State Park.
Setting up camp
We split into two groups. One group trooped up the path from the landing with their arms full of gear. Those not involved in this march were joined in friendly cooperation to set up our four tents in a semi-circle around the campfire pit. The work was going quite well.
We tried not to be too close to a party of men who were setting up at the next site. The neighboring two men setting up their one tent succeeded in severely aggravating one another. One tried to instruct the other how to set up the tent as they were doing it and came off with all the grace of a Marine drill sergeant. The second tried to follow his directions but became more frustrated by the moment in trying to explain the difficulty he was having.
Our tents systematically and gradually sprang up around the site. What sprang up in the neighbor's campsite was the volume of their interpersonal conflict. The men finally snapped and had it out with some liberal wording we will not include here. Their friends smiled, shook their heads, and went to pick up more gear. Our using the next site over may have made their situation even more irritable. After setting up their tent, they carried it to the other end of the camp!
The situation was resolved over a few beers and the group of men became amiable enough to carry on friendly -- and loud! -- conversation into the wee hours of the morning when at 8 a.m., they finally fixed their steak supper. I do not remember being awake when they were not talking and laughing loudly.
No sooner had the tents been set up than the clouds opened and the rain began to fall heavily. We donned our rain gear and finished staking out the tents with guylines. We used paddles and ingenuity to set up a tarp partially over a firepit and picnic table. One group went up the hill for water. I went up to the campground and found that the park manager had already come and gone.
Fortunately, a couple in a yellow Eureka tent was kind enough to sell us a bundle of wood that they had extra. One of our members was proficient at starting a fire; another was proficient at keeping the flame going.
The definition of a can opener is "the essential tool always left behind." As I was preparing to fix a dessert that included cans of pie filling, and rummaged in my gear for a can opener, I became increasingly aware with gut-wrenching guilt that I had forgotten it.
This was especially disconcerting because the next day's lunch was spaghetti and the sauce was canned.
Remembering our intoxicated neighbors, I stole silently to their tent to bum a can opener. I was in luck: they happened to have one.
Under cover of darkness, I slipped back into the ranks of my party, hopefully unmissed.
I then endeavored to open up the cans of pie filling with what proved in the light to be a bottle opener, not a can opener. Like I knew what I was doing I proceeded to mutilate the cans with the wrong tool for the job. One of the persons in my party came over and after a minute of studying my pitiful attempts, humbly and honestly asked, "Do you want to use my can opener?"
We fixed a wonderful cherry cobbler in the Dutch oven. After some coffee and intellectual talk about BASEketball and SouthPark, we turned in for the night. One guy meowed. Another snored. Several talked into the wee hours. The neighbors laughed and drank loudly.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
We awoke the next morning to a breakfast of English muffins and bagels toasted on the backpack-style stoves, buttered, and sprinkled with light brown sugar. We loaded up our canoes and looked around carefully to make sure that nothing was left behind: something that a lot of other people evidently do not do. Left by previous groups were shorts, socks, twine, a towel, cigarette butts, paper, foil, paracord, etc., etc.
Some things are the same as the Pacific Range.
Something worth remembering
On Sunday, the worst paddlers were better. The couple who had previously wandered all over the river were now content to occasionally pass from one side to the other perhaps every eighth of a mile. We moved down the river quite well. I had pawned some of my load off on some other canoes and was able to maintain a solid fourth position.
We followed the creek southwesterly, passed under County Road 1220 North, and stopped for lunch on a sandbar near Keller Branch Creek with around six miles left in our trip. We started our stoves and boiled some macaroni and marinara sauce while part of the crew sliced garlic bread. After eating well, washing our pans and filling our water mixed with pink lemonade, we headed down river again.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
The river bent around to the east and then bent back to the west. As one couple turned a corner into some rapids, an unrelated canoe hit a branch and capsized in front of them. They ran into it. The capsized canoe's gear went floating through the river. They stopped to help them as best as they could before going on.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
The trip was going great until we reached Turkey
Run, and then the games began. If you have been to Turkey Run,
you have seen what I am about to describe. From the Narrows all
the way to Cox Ford Bridge, the creek that has been a gently rolling
waterway becomes one of those rubber duck games you see at the
State Fair or Corn Festival. The difference is that, instead of
grabbing a duck and looking for a number on its underside, there
are actual lives floating in rubber tubes, taking up 90 percent
of the surface area through which you have to guide your canoe.
To add to this challenge, the tube people, either because of heat
stroke or alcohol consumption, are unaware that they are not the
only life in the creek. They do not see you coming. They do not
know you exist. They do not know you are five times as big as
they are and that 50 to 100 pounds of Royalex is about to run
over their rubber-ringed posterior!
While you are dodging rubber people, there are a host of other souls who are diving upon you from the bridges and Mansfield sandstone cliffs all around and over you. I am not sure how many I finally ran over. I lost track of the bumps.
This, however, is not what I want to remember.
After the rubber people game and a total of nine hours on the river, we arrived at our destination: Cox Ford Bridge. We were tired, for sure. But we were happy. There were 10 participants and myself.
What is important is not that we paddled 13 miles down Sugar Creek. Neither is it of particular importance that the weather reports called for lightning storms all weekend. It may be of some import that the majority of the participants were novice canoeists at best.
What I want to remember, however, is the group that managed all this. This group consisted of 11 people, including two East Indians, two Japanese, one African-American (a masseuse to boot!), four males, and seven females. What I want to remember is that we had a wonderful diversity of people that together solved problems, managed wet weather, successfully paddled 13 miles, and enjoyed not only the trip, but each other, without any interpersonal conflicts.
That is worth remembering.
Jamie Lewis Hedges is an Indiana State University student.
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