Paddle: Reedy Creek NOT!!!

We hadn't paddled in a while, and I was getting jittery from withdrawal. So, I perused our Florida paddling guide, looking specifically for venues that were close to our camp and didn't require a car shuttle. One jumped out and grabbed me: Reedy Creek. Reedy Creek flows out of Walt Disney World and is only about 10 miles from our camp. I think its headwaters are on the slopes of Space Mountain. It sounded interesting, but the guidebook warned that there could be some logs and snags in low water. And we certainly are experiencing low water in central Florida. But we can handle logs and snags, right? Right! So off we went.

Our plan was to put in at the bridge where Reedy Creek crossed US 17/92. We would paddle north and upstream as far as we could, then return back to the put-in. No shuttle required.
Sweet! If we were lucky we would get as far as I-4. If we were really lucky we would make it all the way to Tom Sawyer Island in Frontierland, in the heart of the Magic Kingdom.

Alas, it was not to be. Things started off fairly ominously. The Great State of Florida has built a new bridge across US 17/92, and there was no easy access to the creek from that bridge. The old bridge was still standing about 100' north of the new bridge, but access to the old bridge was about as bad as access to the river from the new bridge. The approach roads for the old bridge were gated and posted 1/4 mile back from the bridge in both directions. Finally we found a wide place to park up on the new portion of the highway and dragged our gear over the guard rail, dodging speeding cars and trucks, and made it to the old bridge. There was a good access to the creek at the eastern end of the old bridge, and we could see signs that other boaters had put in here. That was encouraging. That's when we first really looked at the creek. The anticipated logs and stumps were not to be seen. They were probably under the thick mass of weeds that choked the creek in both directions as far as we could see. Dang. Well, we had already unloaded the gear and hauled it 200 yards to the water and hadn't been run over by a bus, so we might as well give it a shot while our luck was holding. After all, we had paddled in weeds before. We put in and began to paddle/pole ourselves upstream. We might as well have been paddling in wet sand. We couldn't go anywhere. After about 20 minutes we had made perhaps about 100 yards, and there was no relief in sight. We decided we better turn back before the trail we had cut through the floating jungle closed back in on us. We finally made it back to the bridge and saw that the weeds were not quite as thick southbound, at least as far as we could see. So we continued downstream a short distance before we realized that route was futile as well.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow. Besides, the trip wasn't a total loss: I found 5 pretty nice bobbers for Wayne.