Buffalo River: Steel Creek to Kyle’s Landing Float Trip
Today we decided to help our friend Sara celebrate her birthday with a float trip from Steele Creek to Kyle’s Landing on the beautiful Buffalo River. This trip was actually put together by Sara’s bestie Amanda who was kind enough to invite us in on the fun. We all met up at the river around 9:00AM and after getting our group of 9 people, 1 dog (Duke), 3 canoes, and 1 kayak all ready for the water we hit a snag in the plan. One of the canoes was in pretty rough shape and proved to be better on land than water. We adjusted our plan and here is what we came up with: 6 of us decided to start out on the river at a slow pace and find a place to pull over for a long lunch while the other three along with the dog went on to Jasper to quickly rent a water worthy canoe and join up with us at our lunch spot. This plan worked out great and by noon we were all floating down the river together. It had been a while since any of us had been on a float trip so we all learned a lot as we reintroduced ourselves to the river (look for notes on this at the end of the post).
“America’s First National River Established in 1972, Buffalo National River flows freely for 135 miles and is one of the few remaining undammed rivers in the lower 48 states.” quote credit: http://www.nps.gov/buff/index.htm
Photos of us arriving to and floating on the river:
Along the way to Kyle’s Landing we approached Hemmed-In Hollow and decided to pull over to hike to the falls. This hike had a few different access point but from the river it is about a half mile each way on fairly rugged terrain. We did it and enjoyed the falls in about an hour.
TIP: bring a bottle of water. We didn’t and were very thirsty by the end of our hike. I don’t know how rapid or abundant the waterfall is on average but it had rained the day before and it was GORGEOUS.
FUN FACT: Hemmed-In Hollow Falls is 250 ft. tall and is actually the tallest waterfall between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains.
Photos of our hike and the waterfall:
After our hike we got back on the river for the final stretch of our float trip. We made it to the end having only turned over 2 of our canoes and with memories to last a lifetime. With our delayed start, several stops, and hike to the falls, we were off the river, loaded up, and on the road home by 7:00pm so I’d say on average just floating you could expect this particular stretch of river to take about 4-5 hours.
Off the river and waiting on our turn to load up and head home:
Please enjoy these links to help you plan your next Buffalo River float trip:
Buffalo River Condtions and Water Levels
Buffalo River Rentals and Reservations
Reviews and Info. via Trip Advisor
Just imagine if every visitor to the river stacked up a pile of rocks is that what you want to see? The rest of this was awesome.
I can respect that! We only did a couple and right at the waters edge so I imagine they have probaly already been toppled over by the water. If if makes you feel better we picked up a lot of trash that we found on the water’s edge and floating down the river 🙂 Thank you for your comments! We had an amazing time and and I can’t wait to go back and try different stretches of the river. Do you happen to have any good recommendations for future floats?