More NC and SC Blather
Greg, I was going to PM you this, but some of it may be useful to other folks pondering a Carolinas getaway. Hope it catches you before you leave.
For a downriver canoe camper on that coastal plain Will Derness is right, the Lumber is hard to beat. Especially with the benefits of State Park lands along the way, established (upscale) campsites along the river and local shuttle drivers possibilities.
The Lumber River State Park Rangers at Princess Ann have been very helpful; they had a list of local guys who would do an inexpensive
meet you are the take out, drop their car off, ride with you to the put in and drive your car back, leave the spare keys somewhere style shuttle.
I probably shouldn’t say this, but one trip the Rangers called shuttle numbers for us from the HQ office phone and, when they got no answers, followed behind as I dropped off our van downsteam and drove me back to the put in. In a plainly marked State Park truck, asking only that I hide under the dashboard as we went through town. That was off season; we were the only people camped at Princess Ann, and the Rangers are attuned to paddler needs, wants and questions.
A cautionary caveat about North Carolina temperatures in November. I was on the NC coastal plain one Thanksgiving and started out sleeping under a sheet with the truck fan going. In the space of a November week I was sequentially under a sheet, a 30/50 flip bag, a 20F bag and a 0F bag. One night I left a beer out and it froze. YMMV earlier in the month.
I am admittedly a fan of paddling and camping behind oft-windy barrier islands, but Hammocks Beach SP is truly wonderful off-season, and the passenger ferry stopped running on Oct 27, so it’s paddle in only time. If you bring your Sea Wind, or any ruddered hull, take care to load it stern first on the floating platform launch rollers.
The Park suffered hurricane damage and some facilities were closed (actually the whole park was closed for several months), but everything seems to be back up and running. I have thoroughly enjoyed every trip to Hammocks Beach; it’s a short paddle in but there are gobs of day paddling opportunities behind the island and around the nearby Huggins Island Maritime Forest (although Swansboro is overly visibly from the backside of the Huggins). Good day sailing opportunities too, or even playing in the runout of the Bogues Inlet surf if you are daring.
I love the history of that place, from ownership as a Yankee Doctor’s private hunting island, willed at his hunting guide’s request to the NC black Teacher’s Union, who tried to develop it, turned over to the State as a briefly “Blacks Only” State Park (reachable only by boat?) and eventually opened to all with the Civil Rights Act.
Add to that the one-time civil war fortification on Huggins Island, and the usual NC barrier island pirate tales and sea battles near Bouge Inlet. Fascinating place.
https://www.ncpedia.org/hammocks-beach-state-park
Some Hammocks Beach caveats: There is (was?) a palatial bath house on the island. I have never availed myself of it, or even gotten very close; it is a mile hike from my preferred campsites, so I bring a wag bag and bucket system. Most of the sites (except #14 on the paddle in route) are very clean and near pristine.
Also, no campfires are permitted anywhere, which is part of why the sites are so clean. The Rangers have always permitted me to use the Fire-in-a-Can after bringing it in for a demo. I did not bring in the portable toilet for a demo.
For Hammocks Beach tides use Bouge Inlet, plus an hour or more for infilling or draining the marshes and HQ launch. The inlet channel to the beach camping sites # 1 – 11 can be inches, maybe not even plural, deep get-out-and-wade at low tide. From site #12 that landscape change is fun to sit and watch.
https://www.saltwatertides.com/cgi-bin/neatlantic.cgi
Maybe that’s just lazy me; I enjoy just sitting and watching tidal changes in the landscape, or at least walking down to a tidal channel and thinking “Dayum, that all looks very different now”. Hiking along the low tide exposed sandy flats and trapped pools is a natural history lesson in itself.
Obviously I really enjoy that place, even with the constant “Is that thunder?” sound of artillery fire from Camp Lejune and occasional low-level flyovers of Marine aviation. Those are kinda loud, but infrequent and awesome to witness up close. If you hold up a beer when a Marine helicopter does a low level pass they may show their appreciation.
Hammocks Beach would be high on my list, along with some Black River and some Pocossin Pond appreciation; it is less than 100 miles and three mostly rural country roads from Jones Lake/E-town to Hammocks Beach/Swansboro; NC 41, NC 111, NC 24, turn into the park. Two well-marked turns simple is a good thing when I’m driving pre-dawn to arrive early, especially on unfamiliar roads.
Well pre-dawn; the school buses start running early in rural NC.
The camping area at Pettigrew SP/Lake Phelps is only 13 sites and fairly “rustic”. I liked that part, but most of the sites are kinda blah, and the lake is not walk-the-boat-over accessible. With a real sail Lake Phelps (2[SUP]nd[/SUP] largest natural lake in NC) could be a hoot and a half. Restored plantation house and slave cabin, dugout canoe dredged from the lake. Probably worth a stop if you are headed in that direction anayway.
The kept-open sections of the Black are as good as smaller blackwater rivers get, and Jones Lake is the nearest State Park for camping. The Corner Café, just up the road in Elizabethtown has killer breakfasts and even better local conversation, everyone small town knows everyone else, and their family.
And the local Food Lion carries a decent selection of craft beers.
Maybe skip E-town and the diner breakfast, and get out on the Black near dawn. I started paddling on the South and Black in the mid-80’s, leading sunrise group trips from a friend’s nearby property. Dawn on a blackwater river is a special time for seeing the local fauna, or just to be there.
On the Black River the dependably open sections are Ferguson Section 5. Ivanhoe Wildlife Boating Access to Beattys Bridge, 7.6 miles (passing the confluence with the South, with lots of old oxbow meanders) that can easily take a day if you explore off to the side where the wild things are. The Ivanhoe WBA is an A+ put in, Beattys Bridge a B-, lots of wide shoulder parking, but a short steep climb up to the road.
The South River seems to vary in paddle-ability from year to year and storm to storm. Some of the landowners along the South have refused the State’s help in removing Post-hurricane strainers. I would not recommend Section 10 at the bottom of the South, but things change from year to year. One of the upper sections of the Black was a horrendous strainer-fest one year, and clear sailing a few years later (water levels matter).
FWIW I have notes about the various put ins/take outs along all off the South and most of the Black. The Wildlife Boating Access areas are all good, some of non-WBA road crossings are simply awful (ie, Wildcat Rd on the Black is a D-, NC 41 a D, Butler Island Bridge Rd on the South a D+, NC41 on the South a D, etc, etc). A good put in and take out make a trip more enjoyable for me, and if I’m going to suffer I’d rather do so at the start of a trip when I’m fresh.
Ferguson Section 6 (Beattys Bridge to Hunts Bluff, 11.9 miles through Three Sisters, with plenty of oddities along the way), is likewise a special place, although so special and well known it sometimes has other paddlers and club/guided group trips afloat. You could put in upstream at the private Henry’s Landing, eliminating a mile or so near the head of tidal.
Either section could usually be done as a paddle up/float back without a shuttle. Only one gauge, on the Black River near Tomahawk. Anything above 2-ish feet is floatable.
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nc/nwis/uv/?site_no=02106500&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060
I installed a 12 foot tall stick gauge on the friend’s property along the South, at the same (very low at the time) river height as the Tomahawk gauge. That stick gauge on the South is surprisingly consistent with the USGS Tomahawk gauge. At the 11’ mark either of those rivers is at flood stage and spilling over into the lower floodplain even in the higher banked areas. Still do-able with good boat control, and sometimes scanning ahead for bank side trees leaned canopy inwards /__\ , denoting the actual river channel.
On blackwater rivers a stand of conifers is usually a sign of (at least 1[SUP]st[/SUP] floodplain) “high ground” camping space, and a stand of beech or other hardwood higher elevation still. Like barrier islands I have a penchant for the peculiarities of backwater rivers.
The Alligator River/Milltail Creek are nothing really special, mostly convenient if you are headed that way between Pettigrew and the Outer Banks. Merchants Millpond is special, but it is an hour’s drive east of the interstate, and even paddling into camp and paddling up into Lassiter Swamp you could see it all in a day or two.
Apologies for running long, as usual. I love that area, and think coastal NC is a semi-undiscovered off-season paradise for paddlers, and NC is doing its bit to make it easier and more accessible. I wish more southern States would see that light.
Have a great trip. Please let us know where you paddled and what you thought. And if you find someplace new to recommend . . . .
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Ellipses”, I never knew what those were called!