Thompson Creek / Sipsey River
02 February 2002
by: Heather Mitchell
This is a very beautiful and scenic float through the entire Wilderness Area of the Bank Head National Forest. We put in at forest road 208 and the take out is the Sipsey River Recreation Area. The float lasted approximately five and a half hours given we had about eight log jams that we scurried across and under or any which way we could manage. The water current moves slowly, although a good ability to control your canoe would be necessary through some of the tight areas. There is one class two rapid called Ship Rock rapid. This is the first time that many of us have floated this section of the Sipsey River because it is very water dependant and usually is only floatable during the winter months.

Our party consisted of six canoes with nine paddlers. Our trip leader was Bob Barnett. The paddlers were Brenda Barnett, Johnnie and Nancy Shue, Robert Andrews, Orrin Long, Ron Thomas, Jon Mitchell and myself. Our heroes for the day were Jon Mitchell, Johnnie Shue and Orrin Long. They impressed us with how confident they were at balancing on top of the wet slippery logs while pulling our canoes across the log jams. Meanwhile, the rest of us were busy climbing out of our canoes while carefully moving out of the way without falling into the cold water. Some of these log jams were absolutely enormous, which we took pictures of for evidence. One of these days Jon and I are going to see the Sipsey River when the water level is as high as we have seen evidence of such as the unbelievable log jams.

We stopped for lunch at Ship Rock where Doug Brewster and some friends were camping. They were gracious enough to share their nice warm fire, which made our lunch stop more comfortable. After lunch we walked down stream a "little" ways to take a closer look at the Ship Rock rapid. This class two rapid is floatable but tricky. Most of us chose to portage around because of the fact that the air temperature was around 43 degrees and we were concerned about getting wet, considering we still had several more hours to float. Bob and Brenda chose to go through the rapid. Unfortunately, Jon and I missed them run the rapid because we were waiting upstream. We were next in line but lost our confidence when we learned of our mentors' outcome. I hope someone was able to catch that rare event on film. Ha!

I feel that we all had a good time and would recommend this float to anyone who would enjoy soaking in the scenery of some of the most beautiful country you will ever see.