The Third Edition of Canoeing and Kayaking Georgia. is finally out, after perhaps-perfectionist Suzanne Welander worked on it seemingly forever, and it is worth the wait.
It is even more thorough than previous editions, with some new put-ins added Continue reading
Update 2021-08-16: Two Withlacoochee River 360-degree transits by WWALS on Earthviews 2021-08-16.
Rain poured during the shuttle from Nankin Boat Ramp to Sullivan Launch, but the weather relented as we started to paddle, just as expedition leader and weatherman Bobby McKenzie predicted.
22 people paddled in 21 boats, entering Florida three times, past McIntyre Spring, Arnold Springs, the Valdosta Railway Trestle, and Horn Bridge. Only a few took out at State Line Boat Ramp, because they were musicians and they had a gig that same evening.
Almost all continued past PCA and Jumping Gully Creek to Sullivan Launch for a total of 14.22 miles in barely four hours. Subtract half an hour for the lunch stop at State Line Boat Ramp, and that’s 3.5 hours, for 4 miles per hour.
![[Valdosta Railway Trestle in the middle]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-07--nankin-state-line-sullivan-pictures/many.jpg)
Valdosta Railway Trestle in the middle
WWALS Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman left her boat in the truck until the last minute, because she did not want to paddle in the rain. WWALS President Tom H. Johnson Jr. and Mary Carolyn Pindar drove four hours for this outing, so they were going to paddle anyway, as was I. Continue reading
Our host, Sementha Mathews, of Turner Center Art Park, asked us to extend the deadline one more week. So we did, to July 21, 2021!
Send in your song now through this entry form:
https://forms.gle/tWrqas7qPWDKgpqF6
Yes, we have some songs. But, we want more!
Our most recent songwriter wrote his song yesterday and sent it in.
Come on, songwriters, make the competition fierce for that $300 cash First Prize, with $300 equivalent in studio time!
And for the $50 prize for best song from within the Suwannee River Basin, and $50 for best song from without.
And for the plaques for best in each song genre.
Everybody else, tickets will be on sale soon, to listen to our two headliners, Scott Perkins and his band Little Perks in Paradise from Atlanta, and Valdosta’s own Dirty Bird and the Flu. Each of the three judges will also play, even before we get to the finalists and the judging. With food by Hibachi Hwy and drinks by The Pour House.
Here’s Scott Perkins singing his song, Hoochie Coochie for the Withlacoochee, in the 2020 Contest:
Scott Perkins singing Hoochie Coochie for the Withlacoochee, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting 2020
Videos by Phillip Plumlee and John S. Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
Turner Center Art Park, Valdosta, Georgia, August 22, 2020.
Much more about the Contest is here, including song submission form,
contest Rules, and, soon, tickets:
wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-21–songwriting/
Georgia Beer Company is back as our top tier sponsor. We have more sponsors, and we can use more!
To encourage more songwriters, here’s a facebook event. But remember to send in your song through the entry form!
About WWALS: Continue reading
Update 2021-08-06: Nankin to State Line and Sullivan Launch, Withlacoochee River, 2021-08-07.
Join us on a leisurely Paddle down the Withlacoochee River southwest of Valdosta and Clyattville, dipping into Florida twice. We will visit two second-magnitude springs, of only six in Georgia. We will see the ruins of an old railroad trestle just before State Line Shoals.
When: Gather 9 AM, launch 10 AM, end 3 PM, Saturday, August 7, 2021
Put In: Nankin Boat Ramp, 6899 Clyattville-Nankin Rd, Valdosta, GA 31601, in Lowndes County.
Take Out: State Line Boat Ramp
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat, paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup.
Free: This outing is free to WWALS members, and $10 (ten dollars) for non-members.
You can pay the $10 at the outing, or online:
https://wwals.net//donations/#outings
We recommend you support the work of WWALS by
becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join
![[Nankin Boat Ramp, River Bend Shoals, McIntyre Spring, Valdosta Railway Trestle]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-07--nankin-state-line-withlacoochee/many.jpg)
Nankin Boat Ramp, River Bend Shoals, McIntyre Spring, Valdosta Railway Trestle
A gate, a tire, and bags of trash cleaned up at Nankin Boat Ramp, on the Withlacoochee River, and at Four Freedoms Trail, on our November 16, 2019 Withlacoochee River cleanup and paddle. Plus plenty of shoals, a sunken boat, a creek, McIntyre Spring, cypress knees, and skinned shins, all ending up at the old railroad trestle.
Our destination was the old railroad trestle, just past which is the takeout onto the Four Freedoms Trail in Madison County, Florida.
Parallel trash retrieval missions for a gate and for a tire at Nankin Boat Ramp, under the bridge for Clyattville-Nankin Road. Continue reading
Update 2019-11-22: Some pictures.
Join us to clean up trash at Nankin Boat Ramp in Lowndes County, Georgia. Bring a boat and join us paddling down the Withlacoochee River, continuing cleanuing up. We will stop at second-magnitude McIntyre Spring in Brooks County, Georgia, which should be flowing fine about now. Thanks to special permission from Madison County, Florida, we will take a few vehicles down to the river at the end of the Four Freedoms Trail to collect an abandoned canoe and other items, and we will take out there.
When: Gather 9:00 AM, launch 10 AM, Saturday, November 16, 2019
Put In: Nankin Boat Ramp, 6899 Clyattville-Nankin Rd, Valdosta, GA 31601, in Lowndes County.
Take Out: Four Freedoms Trail, NE Peppermint Trail, Pinetta, FL, Madison County.
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup, especially this one.
Free: This outing is free to WWALS members, and $10 (ten dollars) for non-members. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
![[Upstream, 2019:10:17 15:59:44, 30.6294432, -83.3186451]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-10-17--four-freedoms-trail-withlacoochee-river/20191017_155944.jpg)
Photo: John S Quarterman, Upstream under the abandoned railroad trestle, at the end of Four Freedoms Trail, 2019:10:17 15:59:44, 30.6294432, -83.3186451
Update 2019-06-08: Reroute due to lack of rain.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, GA, February 13, 2019 — From next to the largest Suwannee River Basin city, Valdosta, to between some of the smallest, Mayo and Luraville, Paddle Georgia brings 300 people this summer to venture for the first time across the state line from Georgia to Florida, on the Little, Withlacoochee, and Suwannee Rivers, June 15 through 21, 2019.
WWALS Withlacoochee River outing 2017-06-24
“Five years ago I suggested our Withlacoochee River to Joe Cook for Paddle Georgia, and he went one better, adding the Suwannee River, past two of the few second-magnitude springs in Georgia, McIntyre and Arnold, and two of the famous first-magnitude Florida Springs: Madison Blue and Lafayette,” said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman. “Plus Spook Bridge and the orphaned railroad trestle near Madison, with many shoals and rapids at the GA-FL line! Special thanks to The Langdale Company for permission to take out just below Spook Bridge. Personally, I like that this paddle starts at my birthplace in Valdosta, Georgia and ends at my grandmother’s birthplace at the ferry site for Luraville, Florida.”
This event is organized by Paddle Georgia, with catered dinners and buses to and from the rivers. WWALS is assisting, for example by organizing the Spook Bridge takeout, and by pointing out many sites that non-locals might miss, ranging from springs, and Withlacoochee River agates, and the halberd-leaf rosemallow, whose blooms last only one day, to perpetual bothers such as Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, the Continue reading
Update 2018-04-10: Canoeing from the Little to the Chee by Burt Kornegay 2018-03-24.
![[Phil Hubbard interviews Burt Kornegay]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-03-24--burt-kornegay/sddefault.jpg)
Very experienced retired outfitter Burt Kornegay from western north Carolina paddled
the Little River from just below its one dam to the Withlacoochee and
on to the Suwannee a week ago, and liked it a lot.
If you want a really good four-day canoe trip, put in right near Reed Bingham State Park at the highway 37 bridge. There’s an excellent put in right there. And spend four days canoeing down this river. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
That’s from somebody who has led expeditions all over the U.S., from the Grand Canyon to the Smokey Mountains, interviewed Saturday a week ago at Troupville Boat Ramp.
Tires and trash cleaned up at Nankin Boat Ramp, swimming and diver tales at McIntyre Spring, a creek, karst, shoals, and rapids, into Florida and back to Georgia all downstream, Valdosta Railway Trestle, Madison County Four Freedoms Trail, and exotic invasive Japanese Climbing Fern, all on a fall day on the Withlacoochee River with WWALS Watershed Coalition, Suwannee Riverkeeper. Thanks to all who came to paddle from as far as two hours from Gainesville, Florida and four hours from Pine Mountain, Georgia.
The Quitman (US 84) Gauge was at about 2.6′ (86′ NAVD88).
Here are some pictures.
This post is just the first part; more pictures will follow are posted with
diving
and
landowners
at Arnold Springs,
Old Clyattville Road Bridge
Horn Bridge,
and
Mozell Spells (State Line Ramp).
and a
Google Map,
and a few videos are still to come.
These are some of our many favorite spots on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.
Watch wwals.net for more outings are they are announced, or see the WWALS calendar or the WWALS outings and events web page. We have outings at least once a month.
One of the original explorers revisited south Georgia’s only known extensive underground spring cave system forty years later: McIntyre Spring on the Withlacoochee River.
Photo: Guy Bryant
Who would have thought that off the Withlacoochee River under Brooks County, Georgia there were caves so big you can hardly see both the diver and the edge: Continue reading
![[Cover and inside]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-06-30--welander-book/many.jpg)
![[Three in a row]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/gretchen/2019-11-16--wwals-nankin/PB162335.jpg)
![[We made it]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/gretchen/2019-11-16--wwals-nankin/PB162343.jpg)
![[A happy paddler]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-03-24--burt-kornegay/20180324_141501.jpg)