It was indeed a devil of a chainsaw cleanup, on the Alapahoochee River, upstream from private land on Swilley Road, starting just below Beaty Bridge.

Don’t worry, Sue Raffaele, the Old Town canoe you donated in 2021 is fine, and freshly washed, inside and out.

Don’t worry, Wild Green Future, the Husqvarna 460 Rancher 24-inch chainsaw WWALS bought with your generous grant is good as new, also freshly washed inside and out. My EGO 18-inch electric chainsaw also still works fine, after drying out.

Nobody was harmed in this outing. Thanks to Bird Chamberlain for leading, and Joyce Ball and Andrew Reinlieb for helping, and to Andrew for the blooper reel.

Pictures: A Devil of an Alapahoochee Cleanup, Logs sawed, canoe bailed, saws washed

Here’s a WWALS video playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLStD1_i2rUIs&si=tTFazJMXOpMQQZhe

We met at Sasser Landing on the Alapaha River. Thanks to Carol Schiro Kren for access on Swilley Road, we started paddling just below Beaty Bridge, one of only two remaining steel bridges in the state of Florida.

We saw an abandoned boat solidly lodged on a log not far above Beaty Bridge.

And a tiny waterfall. No, not Turkett Creek Waterfall; that’s downstream. This one was much smaller.

Bird sawed off some small logs and a big one.

We got upstream into Georgia, to the Last Georgia Deadfall. Things did not go so well there. Let’s say we left some markers. That’s about 0.84 miles upstream from Beaty Bridge and 0.57 miles downstream from the GA 135 bridge.

Paddling downstream was very easy, until….

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