Day 40: Stopping at the Weyerhaeuser Lumber Mill

Wednesday morning began at 6:15 AM when Richard woke up at Clifton Ferry Park along the Alabama River. He had coffee and canned peaches for breakfast and then took a walk up to a barn with the Coca-Cola logo painted on the side.

He took some pictures of the old barn and returned to his tent. As he was walking up to his tent, he spotted an Otter walking right across the boat ramp. Before he could get his camera ready, the otter was gone. During his walk along the road to the barn, he met a gentleman by the name of Mack McCall - he works for the Cook family. The Cook’s have a farm where Mack has worked for over 13 years. After returning to camp, Richard cleaned out his entire dry storage compartment in his kayak. He repacked his food and also took note of the food he had left and any supplies that he needed to re-supply. While he was busy repacking and organizing his kayak, he set out his tent and his sleeping bag to dry out in the sun. The sun was out and there were a few clouds in they sky and no wind. He finally began paddling around 9:10 AM that morning and noted that the river was up about 3 feet from the previous day. A few miles down river, he came upon a site where barges carrying oil were once docked and unloaded. He would soon find out from an employee, Wayne Dunnam, that he’d arrived at the Weyerhaeuser Lumber/Paper mill. The plant makes paper and plywood. The plant once used petroleum for its fuel, so the barges would come up the river and bring oil to the plant. Near the dock for the barges was a large catwalk protruding out into the river. The oil would be offloaded from the barges and pumped into giant fuel tanks nearby. There were 2 big drums near the dock where the barges would pull up that stored the petroleum. Richard described the drums as being 40-50 feet in diameter and about 40-50 feet tall. The plant runs on coal these days so there is no use to import petroleum. The dock for the barge and the catwalk still exist, but are unused. During his stop at the Weyerhaeuser mill, Richard took some pictures from up on top of the catwalk; got back in his kayak and paddled away downstream. A few miles downstream, he came to a park. A boat had passed him earlier on the river as he was paddling down stream. When Richard arrived at the park’s boat ramp, he recognized the boat that had passed him earlier on the river. Two individuals were loading up the boat onto a trailer at the park. The two boaters were Alex Davis and Holly Harvey - they are two environmentalists that work for Weyerhaeuser. Their jobs are to make sure that the company stays within the environmental guidelines set forth by the government. They also make sure that the company acts responsibly in its use of the river and they work to minimize the impact of the plant on the area near the river. The park where they met up was called Holly’s Ferry Access and it only consisted of a boat ramp. After talking to Holly and Alex for a few minutes, Richard continued paddling down river. Right after leaving Holly’s Ferry Access, he spotted another otter running along the bank. He noticed there were dead catfish heads lying near the boat ramp, so that was a clue that there were otters in the area. Later that afternoon while he was paddling, he came upon what he describes as a “perfect section of the river”. The water was calm, the sun was out - there were a few clouds in the sky, but no wind. He leaned back, pulled his feet out of his cockpit and relaxed. He marked this point on his GPS and took a picture to document the moment. He compared the experience to being out in the middle of a lake up in the mountains. Around 5:15 that evening, Richard came across a railroad bridge over the river. He was trying to decide whether he would be able to make it to the next park before nightfall. After calculating his mileage for the day, currently at 20 miles, he decided to stop for the night. He climbed up on the bank near the railroad tracks - there was some flat ground up there that would make a great campsite. There was a small building on the property that looked as though it was once used by a controller who would open the bridge for river traffic passing on the river below. There was also an old house nearby that was up on stilts. Richard noticed that there was an electrical outlet on the stilts underneath the house, so he plugged in his phone to see if the outlet had juice. His “charging” light on his phone lit up immediately, so he left his phone and camera plugged in overnight so that his batteries were fully recharged. A strange detail about all of the structures in the area is that everything was raised up on stilts about 15 feet in the air - it may have been a flood plain, but it seemed odd since the water level of the river was a good 30 feet down the bank. Richard set up camp there for the night and enjoyed an MRE of Chicken Tetrazzini for dinner. In his MRE he also found 2 oatmeal cookies, pretzels and an orange powdered drink that he says is wonderful - it is similar to Tang. Around 7:15 that evening, the wind started howling and then the rain came. The rain continued throughout most of the night - not hard rain, but enough to keep things wet. He also noted that a train passed through during the night and that he thought another train was approaching early on Thursday morning when he awoke suddenly. Little did he know that he had some unexpected guests…