By Sally Sears
With a whoosh, our inflatable kayak filled with air as we launched our adventure on the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. My friend Amy Cromwell and I had mapped out our plan to float the creek from Emory to Morningside’s Zonolite Park, and a brilliant Saturday morning was the perfect time for our trip.
We slid down a steep bank at Clifton Road, noting the din of traffic on the corridor overhead and dropped the kayak into the creek. Wading into the water, we covered the first 15 feet easily, guiding the kayak as it bumped into rocks, and stumbling some in the boots of our chest-high waders. The next 100 yards were tougher. Water seeped into our leaky boots; rocks punched at the kayak, testing its hull. Would it hold? Whose idea was this anyway?
Then, at Sage Hill one sweet pool was deep enough for us to float a few yards. Delicious! Too soon I felt the rocks through the bottom of the kayak as it flexed, so I got out to walk. The water level was higher at the South Fork’s junction with Peavine Creek, so we were able to float there. We passed easily under the bridge at Briarcliff Road and into Herbert Taylor Park. The sand bar ahead held company: a mom and two children startled as we floated past. Our boots were heavy with water, our arms scratched from overhanging branches we’d tangled with earlier. Still, Amy and I felt pretty righteous.
At the next turn, a blue heron stared us into silence. The creek was quiet; dogwoods lifted their first red leaves skyward, and the sun caught on mica flakes, sparkling them to life. Past the bridge at Johnson Road and the US Geological Survey monitoring station, the creek spread out and grew shallow again.
Walking, I discovered that the sandy banks weren’t as firm as they were upstream. They sucked at my boots.
We neared Zonolite Park, where the bank sloped enough to take out the kayak easily, but the last 100 yards held the biggest challenge. The three-foot-wide trunk of a poplar spanned the creek at water level, blocking mounds of styrofoam and human-tossed junk. We tried lifting the kayak up the steep bank, but kudzu made the climb too treacherous. We considered shoving the kayak through the junk, but Amy found other logs beneath the poplar. Then, in one graceful maneuver, she scaled the trunk, cracked one of the submerged logs with her feet, and tugged the kayak through the mess to the final sand bar. Bolstered by her success, I scrambled up and over and felt my boot slip on the bark. Face first, I landed in the creek. Total immersion! Cold, wet, and done!
Time to head back to Emory. Our three-hour float ended with a seven-minute drive to our starting point. What an adventure. We are already planning our next float.