I want to review what it takes to set up a trip on a river with very little published information available on it. Most place we go do have credible maps, descriptions or reviews, but many do not. For the purpose of this exercise, pretend that we have never done the Little River One Night trip. Let’s go back in time and see what we did to get this trip on the calendar. Way back to 2003.

First thing is you have to determine what facts are known.

• 1.    We knew then that there was access to the Little River at Ashalintubbi as we had taken out there several times.
• 2.    We also knew that the next crossing down was the AR 41 bridge and boat ramp outside of Horatio, AR.
• 3.    The “guesstimate” was that the distance was between 12-15 miles between the two.

Given the distance was doable in a single day’s paddle. We did a scouting run in the fall when the water was low. How did we know that? Keep reading.

On the scouting run, we marked all possible camping spots and any other points of interest. Many of these had almost no elevation above the river , so in order to be able to safely run an overnight trip we had to determine minimum and maximum water levels.

 

River levels

This particular reach of the Little River has a lot of factors that determine its level on a given day.

• 1.    Rain runoff from a huge watershed.
• 2.    Two Lakes. Broken Bow Dam, which is a recreational lake and generates hydro electric power and Pine Creek Lake, which is a flood control lake.
• 3.    Power Generation from Broken Bow Dam.

Thanks to all this the river is subject to wildly changing level at times, like the early spring and in the summer.  We needed to access resources that could provide good guides to the levels.

Since there are not a lot of upstream gauges on the Upper Mountain Fork, Pine Creek or any of the other creeks that feed the watershed, we went with the next best thing.  The USACE controls the Pine Creek and Broken Bow dams and they usually have great web pages associated with their dams. Take a look at them.

Pine Creek Dam

Broken Bow Dam

They show at a glance how much water is coming in from the feeder creeks and rivers, how much is going out by way of controlled release or hydro generation and the level of water behind the dam.  Note that as a rule if the level is between the top of the conservation pool and the top of the flood pool, you have a good chance that that water will be released ASAP on a flood control dam, but depending on the weather a hydro dam may hang on to some for power generation. Either way you have to be aware that a release could be imminent.

 

There are a few river gauges below the dams that are important to watch.

Lower Mountain Fork at Eagletown

Little River near Idabel, Ok

Little River near Horation, Ar

The combined volume from the first two contribute to the level of the Little River at Horatio.  A few things to note about this.

• 1.    If you compare the Eagletown and Horatio gauges the graphs look a lot alike, except that the peak level when water is being released or power is being generated at Eagletown is about 11 hours earlier than the peak at Horatio. That is how long the flow takes to cover the 25 or so miles between the two gauges. That means the flow travels at roughly 2.25 miles per hour. So, if your camp is on a gravel bar 15 miles below Eagletown, the water will start rising in about six and a half hours. That usually translates to sometime in the middle of the night. A difference of 15 or so miles between gauges can make a big difference as you can see. Avoid phone river apps when you are looking for river level info. I have seen lots of apps with the wrong gauge associated to a reach of river. I saw one app that used one gauge for the entire Buffalo River (all 140 miles). Use the USGS site , it is phone friendly and you will always be sure of getting the correct flow data.
• 2.    You may also note if you pull up several weeks of data, that between Memorial Day and Labor Day, power is not typically generated on Saturday or Sunday in deference to the local river outfitters who launch boats at Mt. Fork Park.  This is not written in stone though, so never assume it to be fact without some verification. First, check the Dam level on Broken Bow. If its in Flood pool, it will say when and how much will be released. If its hot or cold you want to know the generation schedule as well. Southwestern Power Administration, publishes the schedule of power releases, usually a day or so in advance on their website.

Southwestern Power Administration

• 3.     If you check gauges and see that the river is way too high, you have another resource available, the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction service is available for the Little River near Idabel Ok and the Little River near Horatio, AR.  These handy tools tell you how long it will take the river to drop to normal levels.

Advanced Hydrological pages

Idabel

Horatio

 

Planning the trip

You have all the info you need to plan the trip now. You just have to put the pieces together.

• 1.    Historical data shows that the river is almost always too high in the Spring and during the week in the summer months. Best times to go are in the fall or weekends in the summer. Based on the gauges and surveying the campsites, you want the level to be less than 1,500 cfs.
  
• 2.    You know to monitor the Dams, Gauges and Release Schedules in advance.
• 3.    You have the put in, prospective camp spots and the takeout marked on your GPS or map.
• 4.    When you actually arrive at the selected camp site, take note of there the water was the day before if there was a release and make sure no one sets up in the that zone just in case of an unexpected release.

All of this is transferable to any trip you are planning, but I picked this particular section because it has just about every piece of info you can think of for a river. You might not have all of these for every river, but learning how to use and interpret them could be a lifesaver.