On cool cloudy Wednesday, July 12, Lois and I had the pleasure of paddling the Jordan River from Graves Crossing to the Rogers Road landing.
We locked her canoe and my kayak to the bridge at Graves, and then dropped off Lois’s car down at Rogers Road. Then we came back in my vehicle and paddled away. Both entrance and exit landings were fairly easy to use.
At the end I helped Lois load her canoe onto her car and then we drove back to the put in spot to load up my kayak. We were doing the shuttle around 10:00 and got out of the water to load up around 2:00.
We were accompanied throughout a good part of the trip by a beautiful great blue heron which displayed its magnificent wingspan multiple times, leading us down the river about 50 yards ahead of us.
A mother Merganser and her ducklings swam ahead of us for a while until she decided she’d had enough of that, after which the entire group ran upstream on top of the water, right next to us to get behind us. I was amazed to see how well the small ducklings could run on top of the water.
Overall, it was a very quiet trip with few houses, abundant flora, and a peaceful setting. From Graves Crossing to Webster, there was very little trash in the river. However, from Webster to our takeout at Rogers, there was more trash, particularly submerged beer cans. The club is doing a river clean up on the Jordan in a couple of weeks, so all should be good after that.
Overall, it was an ideal half-day trip, allowing us to get some nature time plus do other things, the rest of the day. There are few places to get out of your craft with the exception of the two landings that we passed, as the banks are quite steep and the current is swift.
Graves Crossing Access
Access at Rogers Road
