Good Getaways
The Locust Fork Canoeing a river that’s literally older than the hills it cuts through
Story and photos by David Moore
O
ur paddles gurgle the water against the canoe’s green hull, propelling us down the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River as leisurely as the white clouds drift against the blue sky over Blount County. My son, Hunter, captains his canoe from the stern. I paddle in the bow when I’m not photographing trees arching overhead, boulder jumbles, ancient river-carved cliffs, occasional sandy beaches and our guide/host, Stephen Guesman, up ahead in his red kayak. Against sand bottoms in the shallow flats we sometimes spot darting fish. “Red bass,” Stephen says. “Anglers love them.” Over the years, I have canoed this and other stretches of Locust Fork, and my appreciation of the river only grows today. Thanks to the Friends of the Locust Fork River (FLFR), this remains one of the few free-flowing rivers that grace Alabama. Relatively undeveloped, it meanders off the Appalachian Plateau from the southern shadows of Sand Mountain on its 158-mile course to the Black Warrior River. Nearly every bend further affirms the Locust Fork’s top-2-percent ranking among free-flowing rivers with “outstandingly remarkable values,” according to a National Park Service inventory. Interestingly, the river’s course today roughly follows that of its ancient forefather streams, which, according to state archaeologist Dr. Jim Lacefield, watered the ancestors of the dinosaurs when the Appalachians were being born some 300 million years ago. Since then, the Locust Fork has carved a path through the surrounding ridges a dozen times or more, making it, literally, older than the hills.
F
ive of the river’s seven sections flow through Blount County. We’re paddling the lower half of Section II, a 4-hour sojourn into the solitude of nature. The quiet flats are interrupted only by the sound of approaching shoals and small rapids where we maneuver around outcroppings and over submerged boulders. Yes ... I occasionally manage to get us hung up. It’s a gorgeous late spring day, but it hasn’t rained lately. Stephen says water depth – as gauged downstream at our takeout where Ala. 79/US 231 bridges the river – is at 1.7 feet. Unless you want to get out and push your canoe down the river, you need at least 1.5 feet of water at the bridge. Two feet is better, but at four feet some of the river’s features are under rushing water, and attempting to paddle it at that point is, Stephen adds, is like “falling down a mine shaft.” Eventually, we reach the final two big hairpin bends of 32
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The Locust Fork opens out at Cornelius Falls, above. The only falls on bottom right, is evidence of a mill located below the falls in a past
