Georgia Wilderness Society
Flint River
Middle of August , 2025
The 4 River Rats (a title given by beloved GWS member Tom Payne), consisted of Curt & Irene Cole, Jeff Sorensen and me, trip leader Basil Youman. We left a little after 9 A.M. after Curt and I ran the shuttle, which took about 45 minutes. Jeff had camped out the night before at Lazer Creek. (In the past, Terry Ross has led us on this beautiful creek, which feeds into the Flint. The only time I saw cows in the rivers that I have paddled was on Lazer Creek.) Jeff said when he was camping, he heard a very loud chorus of frogs, and he recorded them on his phone.
The day started around 75 degrees and got up to 92. You might be thinking “OH that is way too hot”. You guessed wrong. It was overcast for most of the day and a slight breeze making it not too bad, but a couple of times when the sun came out it was hot. Nobody took a swim though. I was wondering how I was going to paddle. I had burning muscles from trying to pull Tami up from the floor at home. She was Ok. I had not done much exercise for 2 months. l was also paddling my recently-purchased, used kayak, a Dagger Savannah. We all made it and seemed to have a good time. We saw quite a bit of nice sandbars at the first 8 miles, but less later. We were able to make the 18.8 miles, from Ga. Hwy. 128 to Ga. Hwy. 96. I was feeling it the last couple of miles though. I don't know how the others felt, but I did not feel any worse the next day.
The highlight of the trip was seeing about 50 different butterflies and a couple of Monarchs, etc. They seemed to hover over Jeff and his boat and Curt and Irene’s boat too. We also saw a White Ibis or Egret. We heard Kingfishers too. GWS has done this trip before, but it was still nice. Thanks Curt, Irene and Jeff for your help and for joining me. Sorry for those that could not make it.
Rats on the Flint River
Basil Youman
