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>>Narrator: Now, the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden. And there,
he put the man he had formed.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: I was going to be tagging along for the first couple of days
of this year’s RiverTrek, and I wanted to explore the area around the Apalachicola River.
This is the Garden of Eden trail. It takes us through steephead ravines, cut over time
from sand or clay hills by trickles of water. Steepheads are moist pockets of biodiversity.
The lush plant life was one reason that Bristol resident E.E. Callaway thought he had found
the Eden of the bible.
Another reason was the Apalachicola River.
>>Narrator: A river flows out of Eden, to water the garden. And from there, it divides
and becomes four branches.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Callaway replaced the Tigris and the Euphrates with the Flint
and Chattahoochee. Whether he was right or not, he is one of many who have found paradise
by the Apalachicola.
Next week, after paddling about twenty miles, we’ll stop here and camp at the Alum Bluff
sand bar. I hope it’s the angle, but it looks like we have less of it than we did
last year. But we’ll see.
>>Doug Alderson: Talk to your trip leaders, but as far as I know, we just need to stay
tuned for Dan coming back to give the sand bar report after the hike. He’s just going
to go down to the sand bar and come back.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: The five-day, 107-mile journey begins near the Jim Woodruff Dam.
The management of the river flow by the Army Corps of Engineers has been the focus of a
decades long battle. After years of drought, things came to a head last year.
>>Helen Light: We’re on track now to be the lowest year ever.
>>Senator Bill Nelson: Just yesterday, the Secretary of Commerce determined that a fishery
resource disaster occurred for the oyster stocks in the Apalachicola Bay.
>>Oysterman: Dead shell.
>>Shannon Hartsfield: These guys are working all day long for three, three-and-a-half bags.
You can’t make a living.
>>Senator Bill Nelson: Mr. Tonsmeire.
>>Dan Tonsmeire: Thank you senators. Apalachicola Riverkeeper appreciates the opportunity.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: The RiverKeeper fights for more water for the river.
>>Tom Herzog: Hola Riverkeeper!
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: RiverTrekkers raise funds for the RiverKeeper and raise awareness
of the river and its issues.
>>Georgia Ackerman: When I as my colleague, “hey, I was wondering if you would sponsor
me because I’m going to paddle in RiverTrek this year.” And they say “What is RiverTrek?”
Then I have this opportunity to have a dialogue with my neighbor, my colleague, family member.
So I am not only raising funds, but more importantly I am raising critical awareness about the
organization and what is going on with the river and the bay.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: After record low flows last year, rain this year has kept water higher.
>>Doug Alderson: The river’s moving pretty fast this year, so it’ a little bit easier
on people.
>>Chris Robertson: Kent has a GPS and he told us that he’s averaging somewhere between
five-and-a-half and six miles.
>>Alex Reed: And we were averaging about four last year, so we obviously are-
>>Chris Robertson: It’s speedier, it just doesn’t feel speedier.
>>Alex Reed: With all the excursions yesterday, we got a little behind schedule, so it’s
kind of hard to tell.
>>Mark Ludlow: What I thought we’d do today is go for a little hike. The stream out here
coming out is called Means Creek. It’s named for Bruce Means, he used to bring his ecology
classes up here and show them this habitat. So, we might see some rare critters, or rare
plants, or bigfoot, or who knows what.
[music]
>>Chris Robertson: The Aspalaga Blue Spring. That was actually George’s idea. It turned
out to be pretty fantastic. A bit of a hike through some relatively untrailed woods. When
we got back to the spring, it was pretty beautiful.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: So how’d you find this place originally?
>>George Blakely: My friend, when I went down the river last, Michael Lampman, he’s really
good with a GPS. And we were pretty much doing anything we could off the main channel.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Right.
>>George Blakely: We went to a lot of out of the way places. Some I hope to visit again
on this trip, we’ll see.
>>Todd Engstrom: Oooh, boy, that’ll wake you up! That’ll wake you up.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Back on the sandbar we were reminded of how people use the river.
>>Tom Herzog: Well, that would be kind of a “living off the land” artifact. Ingenious!
>>Doug Alderson: Looks like ore outposts now than I saw last time.
>>Tom Herzog: It’s heartening to come down the river and see the use. I mean, this river
is the focal point for all of these communities. The houseboats are a chance to for them to
come out and live on the water. They’re out here year round, nd we’re just getting
to the busy season. You know, people using the houseboats, the hunters, the fishermen,
now that it’s cooled down a little bit.
>>Chris Robertson: Venison Chili, Jennifer made this. A friend of mine provided the venison,
I did some work for him, and he decided he would give me some. I said “baby, whoop
that up!”
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: That’s nice!
>>Chris Robertson: And she did, ‘cuase she’s good like that.
[music]
[dog barks]
[laughter]
>>Tom Herzog: So are going to go down there?
>>Dan Tonsmeire: No.
>>Tom Herzog: So we’re here.
>>Dan Tonsmeire: I think so.
>>Tom Herzog: Okay. We’re here. There he is. Our intrepid Riverkeeper.
>>Dan Tonsmeire: The captain has spoken.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: Earlier, Dan had scoped out the usual day one campground.
>>Dan Tonsmeire: So, we’re looking at the camp here, just to see if we have enough room.
Obviously the water is running twice as many cubic feet per second this year, so about
twice as high. So that’s actually made the useable area much smaller.
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: As we see in part two of our RiverTrek 2013 adventure, smaller
sandbars mean more water in places we can paddle.
And we ask the question:
Georgia Ackerman: We’ve got more fresh water, the flow is good, so isn’t everything just
all cured now?
>>Rob Diaz de Villegas: For more information on RiverTrek, visit the Apalachicola Riverkeeper
web site. There, you can also find maps for the Apalachicola Blueway Trail.
The Garden of Eden Trail features some of the steepest hiking in Florida. For more information,
visit the Nature Conservancy Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve web site.
For WFSU, I’m Rob Diaz de Villegas.