Yeah, being from Missouri and paddling Ozark streams all the time, I would hardly call Noel the canoeing capital of the Ozarks, although I’m sure it’s lovely. The Elk River is supposed to be nice, although it doesn’t have a reputation of being any nicer than most other similar Ozark rivers such as the Big Piney, North Fork, Niangua, etc. And of course the nationally designated rivers, the Jacks Fork, Current, and Eleven Point all have reputations of being the nicest Ozark streams in Missouri.
Eminence would certainly be more deserving of the title than Noel in my opinion, or possibly even Mountain View or West Plains since they are more centrally located between many of the best paddling streams.
Arkansas is also “the Ozarks”, and has many towns that could also lay claim to the same title, with wonderful streams there as well (Buffalo, Mulberry, King, White, etc, etc).
I am of course biased, but the Ozarks are quite beautiful and offer phenomenal paddling opportunities if you like rivers. We do have some lakes, but I heard somewhere that Missouri has more miles of floatable river shoreline than any other state, although I have no clue if that’s true. We have great large rivers, such as the Missouri and Mississippi that paddle like large lakes in some regards, but the Ozark streams are normally much narrower, ~2-3mph current speed, crystal clear, cold (spring fed), gravel bottomed, mostly class I, with some occasional sections rated class II, especially in high water. They’re peppered with scenic large rock bluff faces, caves, springs, etc, and alternate between deep pools, some 20+ ft deep (and you can still see the bottom), to shallow swifter sections with obstacles (rocks, root ball strainers, etc). Occasionally there are small rock gardens and rarely real rapids, although they do exist. In my humble opinion they have plenty going on to keep it from being boring, but not so much that it’s not still mostly relaxing if you know what you’re doing. The Ozark mountains aren’t all that tall anymore (they’re much older than the Appalachians), “but the hollers sure are deep” is a saying I’ve heard from locals. Most areas near the rivers have amazing stargazing as well, being considered “dark sky” areas with little light pollution.
I probably shouldn’t be this way, but I almost hate talking it up too much because as noted above, it does get crowded in the summer, especially on weekends and holidays and I do hate to add to that. I remember “floating” as a kid on summer weekends with fairly few others seen (although we did always go earlier than most as you tend to see more wildlife). However, I no longer paddle the Current or the Jacks on weekends from late May through September, due to the high number of rafts, tubes, rental kayaks, jet boats, and the drunken stupor crowd (and this from someone that’s not opposed to a beer or two myself). During the week, it’s still possible to have a great paddle though. And during the rest of the year, you often see very few or often no other people on the water all day, even on the weekends. There’s not much better than a nice day of having the river completely to yourself, and I get plenty of those every year still. October or November during the fall colors is possibly my favorite time to go. If a weekend trip is all someone has, there are smaller, less well known places that are great alternatives, possibly even the Elk in Noel…
www.islands.com
