Georgia Wilderness Society
Adventures on the Flint River
November 16-18, 2023
Flint River Sandbar: Seven GWS paddlers in four canoes and one kayak journeyed 33 miles on the Flint from Hwy 128 west of Roberta to Free Ferry on November 16-18, 2023. The trip had to be relocated downstream from the originally planned PoBiddy section due to low water, and even the navigability of this lower section was in doubt until a mere quarter inch of rain in the watershed a few days earlier, combined with the fall dormancy of trees, more than doubled the Flint’s water volume from 450 cfs.
Paddlers were Trace Butler, Ben Thompson, Curt and Irene Cole, Terry Ross, Grant Mangum, and trip leader Joe Mangum.
We were able to get around numerous strainers that would have required portaging or sawing at the lower water levels. We also dodged predicted rain; saw nary a drop.
In previous years I have scheduled the fall sandbar trip before hunting season in October, but the last two years have made it clear that delaying until mid-November is a better choice. We had pleasantly warm days and cool nights, but almost no bugs, and we enjoyed the fall color. Strangely, we saw no wading birds or bald cypress in this section, but we did see lots of pigs in the swamps, wood ducks, a huge whitetail deer, and the usual kingfishers and buzzards. Saw one other person on the river in three days.
All of us enjoyed the evening and morning campfires on the sandbars. It may take a day to pack and another day to clean and dry the sand and river mud from our gear, but sandbar camping is a great GWS tradition!
