Tag Archives: Little Alapaha River

Alapaha and Little Alapaha Rivers at US 41, Hamilton County, FL 2024-08-24

Frequently there’s no flow in the Little Alapaha River at US 41, but Saturday there was.

In the Alapaha River where it is often completely dry under US 41, there was plenty of water, a bit west of Jasper, Florida, in Hamilton County.

Rivers at US 41, Hamilton County, FL, 2024-08-24, Alapaha River, Little Alapaha River

The Alapaha River Jennings Gauge was about 66.06 feet NAVD88 at 2:15 PM, Saturday, August 24, 2024. That’s well within the WWALS recommended water levels of low 65, high 76 at US 4 1 on the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT).

Here’s a bit of video:
https://youtu.be/FWFsUfMSOP0 Continue reading →

Little Alapaha River and Alapaha River in Action Stage at US 41 2024-05-25

Yesterday evening around 6:20 PM, the Little Alapaha River still had water in it, under US 41.

Little Alapaha River, @ US 41 2024-05-25, Alapaha River in Action Stage @ US 41, 78.22 NAVD88 Jennings Gauge

And the Alapaha River, where it often is dry, was flowing fast under US 41, in Action Stage at 78.22 NAVD88 on the Jennings Gauge.

Both in Hamilton County, Florida. Continue reading →

US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge

Actually, there is a US 41 Little Alapaha River bridge, and it may even be historic. So that’s five bridges across the Little Alapaha River, four above the Swallet, and one below, before its Confluence with the Alapaha River.

Composite US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge

The US 41 bridge is the first bridge listed by bridgereports.com for Hamilton County, mislabled as “US-41 (SR-6 & 25) over ALAPAHA RIVER OVERFLOW”. But at 30.52389, -83.01550, it’s much closer to the Little Alapaha River.

At more than a mile east of the Alapaha River, that’s a bit far to be overflow. Continue reading →

Little Alapaha River, Swallet, Bridges, Source, Mouth 2022-02-07

Update 2022-02-09: US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge.

During Sunday’s paddle on the last stretch of the Alapaha River, people got curious about a distributary which turned out to be the Little Alapaha River absorbing water from the Alapaha River.

Source, Bridge, Swallet, Confluence: Little Alapaha River

Here is a bit more about the Little Alapaha River: map, Source, Bridges (one wooden), Confluence, where two days ago we found the Alapaha River running into the Little Alapaha River as a distributary. Continue reading →

Pictures: Last stretch, Alapaha River 2022-02-05

Update 2022-02-07: Little Alapaha River, Swallet, Bridges, Source, Mouth 2022-02-07.

Cold but well worth it, said the nineteen paddlers let by Shirley Kokidko on the WWALS paddle from US 41 on the Alapaha River to the Suwannee River. Plus a distributary that turns out to be the Little Alapaha River. And the Alapaha River Rise, where Alapaha River water from the Dead River Sink comes back up 20 miles and three days later, slightly upstream on the Suwannee River.

US 41 Bridge, Little Alapaha River, Suwannee River, Alapaha River Rise

Here are 360-degree views every 10 seconds, taken with a GOPRO 360. Continue reading →

Suwannee River Basin Maps

Update 2019-02-13: And a version with Landings. See also Water Trails, with more detailed maps and access points.

Nobody seems to have done this, so we did: a map of the Suwannee River Basin, with the major watersheds and the Estuary shaded, and all the major rivers, plus many of the creeks. Bonus: springs! Click on this link for an interactive google map of the Suwannee River Basin.

The river traces come from USGS and Chris Graham. The watershed boundaries are from USGS. The springs are from the Florida Springs Institute, plus four Georgia springs collected by WWALS.

The eight-digit hydrologic unit codes (HUC8) for the Suwannee River Basin are: Continue reading →

Little Alapaha River

Probably the least-known tributary of the Alapaha River, the Little Alapaha River is so shy it disappears underground between Jennings and Jasper, Florida.

The Little Alapaha River arises in Echols County, Georgia, just before it flows into Hamilton County, Florida, where it falls into a sinkhole west of Jasper, briefly reappearing before vanishing again. Theoretically it is a tributary of the Alapaha River, but it is not clear the waters of the Little Alapaha River ever reach the Alapaha River aboveground. Like the Alapaha River, the Little Alapaha’s sinkhole disappearance happens at the Cody Scarp. Chris Graham found this very interesting reference, Continue reading →

Rivers go underground at the Cody Scarp

The Alapaha River goes underground because the underlying karst limestone rises in what’s called the Cody Scarp, which runs across north Florida. Other rivers that go underground there include the Little Alapaha River and the Santa Fe River. The Withlacoochee River does not go underground, but it does sprout Madison Blue Spring.

Source: Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. 123, no. 3-4, p. 457.

Here’s a cutaway diagram of how all that works underground: Continue reading →

Streamer on the Suwannee, Alapaha, and Withlacoochee Rivers: ten or more rivers and many creeks, lakes, swamps, and ponds

Update 3 March 2016: Suwannee River, ten rivers, and current location of USGS streamer.

The USGS Streamer interactive map shows all (well, most) tributaries of our two biggest WWALS rivers. Visitors sometimes refer to our “four rivers” since we only originally named four in our WWALS mission: Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little. Yet we added the upper Suwannee, and there always were more than that: from one to ten rivers, depending on how you count them.

The Withlacoochee River tributary map here shows the New River south of Tifton joining the Withlacoochee between Nashville and Adel.

The New River is rather important, since it forms half of the boundary between Cook and Berrien Counties (the Withlacoochee River forms the other half): Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.