“It’s a 50 percent chance of rain at 7am, becoming more likely as the day goes on,” said Ward Swann, a Yadkin River Steward who offered to guide us. “The forecasted chance of lightning is a little more exciting.”

Should we cancel? The thought niggled at me as Ward greeted us at the put-in near Lexington just after sunrise. Gray clouds hung heavily over the river, but it wasn’t raining. The river, laden with sediment, looked as murky as the sky.

“Let’s go,” I declared. Weather forecasts are not always accurate, I reasoned, and if we don’t get out there, the opportunity might not come again to experience the river where the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, and his family resided for over 20 years. If thunder rumbles, we’ll quickly tuck under the tall riverbank until it passes.

 

 

The Boone Connection

Daniel Boone (1734-1820) was born in rural Pennsylvania in an era when the Appalachian Mountains were a barrier to settlement in colonial America. The land beyond those mountains was largely unexplored by Europeans and controlled by various Native American tribes, some friendly, some not.

Boone was the sixth of 11 children. During his childhood, he spent most of his time in the woods hunting and fishing. When a schoolteacher expressed concern over his missing school, his father said, “Let the girls do the spelling, and Dan do the shooting.” Later, his prowess with a gun served him well as a market hunter for animal pelts and as a militiaman during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.

When Boone was 16 years old, his family moved to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, where he met his wife Rebecca. Together they raised 10 children of their own and another eight children of deceased relatives. Rebecca handled the homestead while Daniel disappeared into the Appalachian Mountains for months at time to harvest pelts to support the family.

Daniel Boone made plenty of money, but he was frequently in debt because he spent it, misplaced it, or it was stolen. Some say, for several years, his clan purportedly lived in a cave beside the Yadkin River that he had frequented on his local hunting and fishing forays as a teenager. Today, the cave is part of Boone’s Cave Park, a state park and the pull-out at the end of the canoe trail. Seeing it was reason enough to paddle the trail, but we also planned to cast a line at Boone’s Shoal, also known as Big Rock Rapid, where Boone himself fished, and paddle through lands that Boone had hunted.

 

 

Canoeing the Trail

The first challenge was launching Jack’s and my solo canoes and Ward’s kayak. The water was at the bottom of a long, steep, mud-covered stairwell, a reminder of the Yadkin River’s tendency to flood after heavy rain. Judging by the muddy stairs, the river commonly rose 10 feet or more.

After wrestling the boats to the water, we pushed off into the plucky current. I focused my gaze down river because there wasn’t much to see to either side. The banks were high, like parallel walls of clay. Above the clay, a lush green tangle of trees, weeds, and vines framed the gray ribbon of sky.

Within a few minutes after pushing off, the first raindrops began to fall, which soon became the first of many downpours. Ward, Jack, and I ignored the shower, looking down the river for Swicegood’s Mill, a Class II rapid formed by the ruins of an old structure that dated back to the late 1800s during the steam-driven paddlewheel period, though that form of river travel never took off on this portion of the Yadkin. Today, Swicegood’s looked like a giant had placed a number of boulders across the river. The trick was to enter on the left but then stay high and move right above the boulders to a shallow spillover. Luckily, we all navigated the zigzag without an issue.

After Swicegood’s, we paddled steadily for a while. Even with the current, 22 miles was a long way in a day. On the bright side, every time the rain abated, the river turned to glass, easing our

efforts. I started to look around. At first, the vegetation on the river banks seemed as monotonous as the gray sky, but the farther we paddled, the more the Yadkin revealed its secrets.

Long veils of Virginia creeper draped over the water here and there, catching my eye until a great blue heron took off from a hidden perch. “Funny how such a large bird can be so hard to see,” I thought. The bird would stop, then fly ahead, over and over again. I wasn’t sure if we were chasing it down the river, or it was leading us.

Now and again, stands of rivercane guarded a piece of the riverbank. Native to the Southeast, rivercane is a bamboo-like plant that indigenous people used to make such things as blowguns, arrows, flutes, baskets, mats, and shelters. Seeing the rivercane made the journey down the Yadkin feel like a tropical tunnel without a top, though maybe that was because it was pouring again.

About halfway down the Daniel Boone Canoe Trail, through the raindrops, we could see a sizeable, flat-topped boulder in the middle of the river, notable both for its position and the fact that it was a rock. Compared to the rivers in New England whose banks and bottoms are riddled with rocks, the Yadkin seemed rock-free since Swicegood’s Mill. And the rock ahead wasn’t just any rock. During the 1879 survey of the river, the US Army gave it the rather uncreative name, Big Rock Shoal, but it was otherwise known as Boone’s Shoal. Apparently, it was one of Daniel Boone’s favorite fishing spots.

 

We veered toward the right side of the rock to navigate the water as it rolled over a low underwater ledge. Appropriately, Jack cast a fly along the shoals as he drifted past. Watching Jack, it was easy to imagine Daniel Boone trying to reel in a bass or a catfish while standing on the rock. As if on cue, Jack’s rod tip arched toward the water. A minute later, he laughed as he released a small perch back into the murky brink.

After Boone’s Shoal, the river formed an oversized oxbow called Horseshoe Neck, then continued past Boone Game Lands, where sportsmen and women today can hunt where Daniel Boone used to, but there was no wildlife in sight. The rain came in sheets. I bailed out my boat then kept going, anxious to find the take-out. I was so wet that water streamed off my ballcap, my pants stuck to my legs like blue nylon skin, and my raincoat was soaked both inside and out.

“Watch for a rock slab on your left,” said Ward, leading the way. “It’s called Baptism Rock. It’s the take-out. Don’t go past it, or you’ll have a tough paddle against the current to get back there.”

Baptism Rock and the Cave About a half-hour later, Ward steered gradually left until he hugged the left riverbank, heading toward a 25-foot-long sloping rock slab, Baptism Rock. I followed him into an eddy on the upriver side of the rock. Jack was upriver, fishing his way toward us.

Ward got out of his boat and pulled it onto the wet, steep, slippery rock, taking care with his footing. He grabbed his bow rope and stepped gingerly up the rock, pulling his boat.

With his boat secure about 20 feet above us on a dirt path, he returned to help me. I got out of my boat and immediately paused. The rock was as slick as ice with a watery glisten on top, but with Ward’s help, I was able to get my boat to the same flat spot without falling into the river.

“I can see why it’s called Baptism Rock,” I chuckled. “If you slip, you get baptized.” That said, I felt just as wet without an unintentional swim.

Ward looked toward the river to help Jack, too, but Jack wasn’t looking for us. He was fighting a fish on the other side of the river. “He’s going to get himself in trouble if he doesn’t head this way now,” fretted Ward.

However, Jack was an astute paddler. When he saw Baptism Rock, he ferried across to it, dragging his catch along with him. As soon as he reached the rock and could steady himself against it, he landed the fish, brimming with excitement.

“I’ve never caught one of these before!” he exclaimed, holding up a fish that looked like a pale bass with faint stripes. A white bass! I had never seen one before either. I wondered how many of those Daniel Boone had pulled out of the Yadkin River.

Once we got the boats out, we had to check out the cave, of course. The take- out and the cave are part of Boone’s Cave Park, a county park. We sloshed the short distance to the cave. It was a sizeable recess in a cliff above the river, about the size of a small, oval-shaped bedroom. I tried to imagine a large family living in that cave. It seemed dark and dank. It was nice to romanticize that Daniel Boone once lived in the cave, but as the rain continued to fall, I wondered what the real story was.

Daniel Boone’s exploits along the Appalachian frontier made him an American folk hero. Whether he lived in a cave or not, I’m glad I had the chance to see it and experience the river that flowed through his life longer than any place else. t

 

FOR MORE INFO

BooneCanoeTrail.com

YadkinRiverKeeper.org