The River Meets the River Fishing Trail

The River Meets the River Fishing Trail

Ouabache Trails Park

February 23, 2014

I had not taken the River Fishing Trail at Ouabache Trails Park in some time, and I do like to check on it now and then. It is a mostly wide trail, in parts almost as wide as a single lane road. It starts near the main park road, goes down some steps, through a tunnel under the railroad tracks, up some steep steps, and continues on, roughly parallel with a deep creek that eventually flows into the Wabash River.

 

Rather, it normally goes down the steps and through the tunnel. On this day, like so many in recent times, you would not be able to take that “trail” without a boat. Even at that, it's sometimes not possible to fit between the water and the top of the tunnel.

Last spring there was a huge flood, maybe the largest I had seen at the park. The flood water was backed up all the way to the above-mentioned road, and eventually went well over it.

 The creek normally flows through a culvert under the road. Here is a view of the creek bed on the other side.

The railroad tunnel was invisible last spring. I don't know if the water ever went over the railroad tracks, because it became impossible to enter this part of the park.

I do remember many times walking the trail through the tunnel, dry-footed, and watching schools of minnows dart in the very small creek that always runs to one side. In the last year or two, I've hardly been able to use it, though once I could carefully walk a very narrow, rather muddy strip along one side of the tunnel.

Today I, like anyone else, had to go uphill a bit, where that woven-wire fence can be seen in the tunnel photo, to the gated area next to the tracks, where a cord stretches across an opening, bedecked with yellow tags and warning signs (put there by the railroad company), then gingerly straddle over the cord, go over the tracks, and end up where the trail meets the top of the steep steps (there, I said it – they can arrest me now).

Continuing up the River Fishing Trail a little ways, I looked back to see a very swollen, icy creek coming through the other side of the tunnel. It is well beyond either side of the structure, where it normally is a tiny stream entering the far right side of the tunnel.

Downhill to my left, I saw the creek a little further downstream. Normally, the creek channel has somewhat steep sides, and few spots where a person could easily work a way down to the creek water. Also, I saw that one tree had a small circle of land around it, a tiny island in the creek.

I also saw that the dreaded invasive Winter Creeper (Euonymus fortuneii) had invaded the trees and ground in this trail and creek area. I was not too surprised, as it is near an edge (where birds are more likely to land and deposit Winter Creeper seeds that they gobbled up in berries elsewhere), and it is near the railroad.  So many seeds and bits of plant material are carried and dropped by moving trains.

This part of the creek had been forming an oxbow. With so much flooding, so often, I wondered if it wouldn't take much longer for those two close sections of creek to eat away at that narrow bit of land and then connect.

In the foreground is a railroad artifact.

Looking ahead, I could see the flood waters spread out, the creek becoming indistinct as it headed toward the river. It looked less like a creek and more like a bayou.
Usually, as it nears the river, the channel becomes very steep-sided and the water well below. I wondered what it looked like at the river end.

To my right was an area I have often stepped into in order to examine wildflowers closely. The landscape on this cold winter day was all shades of gray and brown, with some brushes of blue in the sky and a more subdued blue where water reflected sky. There was a lot of blue-gray and gray-blue over the ground.

My eye went immediately to a bright crimson spot among  the gray, brown and blue-gray:  a male Cardinal resting on a fallen tree.

Just a little further along, the scene to my right looked more like a large swamp than the usual semi-dry floodplain forest.  Again, these were areas where I had walked and roamed, finding interesting plants and mushrooms, and watching wildlife.

To my left there was much more “swamp”. This looked deeper because it included the big creek channel.  It looked more like a place where one might see the top of an alligator's head poking through a clear spot.

 I wondered how many fish, and what kinds, might be down there well below the surface of thin ice.

In places, the movement of water was frozen into interesting designs.

A little farther, just a little further along the trail, and …

… the trail had disappeared into the swamp-like landscape.

I obviously could not go all the way down to see the Wabash River, to see how it looked that day.

The Wabash River came to me.

Blue in the distance, above and beyond the thick tree line, was the sky above the Wabash River.

I walked to the last tip of land, the farthest I could go on the River Fishing Trail. Looking beyond this point, I could not even remember in which direction the trail winds its way toward the river.

To my right, up ahead, not far from the river, I saw some floodplain forest where my friend Angie and I had roamed last autumn, taking photos of a Whitetail buck that was trying to hide behind one of the trees.

Somewhere in this area were huge patches of Lizard Tail. Last summer, the numerous blooms on the numerous “tails” sent out a heady scent.

There had been much snow over the winter, with a much greater amount in places north.  There had also been a melting period not long before my walk, as well as storms and strong rains throughout much of Indiana.  This is the Lower Wabash Valley, which swells and fills up with the melt water and rains pouring in from all points along the great Wabash River, as it winds from northeastern Indiana, across the state, and a long way south on its way to the Ohio River.

The flooding was far from over.

Well, that was a short walk, but a rather interesting one, with a sort of terrible beauty. The power of water is an incredible force.

I headed back up the trail, upstream. The sun glittered off of the wide, icy top of the creek.  It was easy to find the tunnel and railroad in the distance because the sun was also glinting brightly off of the slick metal of a track.

I am a person who constantly wonders “how” and “why”. I wondered how the floods would affect wildlife here in both positive and negative ways. It will certainly create more dead wood for insect-hunters and cavity nesters. I wondered how long it will take for the oxbow part of the creek to connect.  I wondered how long it will take the water to recede and the ground to be less than mucky. I wondered how much higher the river and flood water might get as more snow would melt around the more northerly river channels and tributaries, and how much water future storms will add, all along the river. I wondered how populations of moisture-loving creatures and plants would be affected by being so long under water instead of in seeps, shallows, and mud. I wondered what the river looked like from the vantage point of this trail, and if Bald Eagles were dipping from tops of trees to the river, and if Great Blue Herons were able to find an edge to step to or a snag to stand on, in search of food.

I wondered if it will flood enough this year to go over the railroad.

 

 I wondered how this old railroad spike came to the center of this old stump.