Located east of Langley on Highway 84 in Lodi, Arkansas, is a very entertaining Class II-II+ creek called Self Creek.
The put-in for a 4.3 mile paddle down the creek is at the Highway 84 bridge; the take-out is at the low-water bridge on Palestine Road.
The best corner of the bridge to launch from is the northwest. I have asked for and received permission from the landowner to park by the creek. Ask each time before you park there; I suspect the owner may have passed away recently, making a new arrangement necessary. There is barely enough room to park on the shoulder of the highway if you can’t get permission to park on the private property. The take-out is on a dirt road, Palestine Road, at a low-water bridge. There is room to park near the bridge. The best shuttle route is to use the pavement as much as possible by driving east on 84 to Highway 70, then turn south and go to Kirby, turn right and stay on 70 west out of Kirby until you come to the electric substation on your right; turn north there on Bar Two Road and follow its winding path to its T intersection with Palestine Road. Turn west on Palestine Rd. and continue until you come to the creek. Palestine Rd. may look like it is someone’s driveway once you get near the creek, but be assured it continues past the house. DRIVE SLOWLY through the populated areas on these roads. Don’t be tempted to use any of the more direct looking roads on the map that run south from near the put-in area. The CC Road to the east of the creek does provide a more direct link to Palestine Road, but it becomes very rough and crosses several creeks without any type of bridge; other roads to the west of Self Creek are often gated shut at both ends or one end.
The gradient just below the put-in is 70 feet per mile with the creek comprised of small pools backed up by low, creek-wide ledges. WARNING! There are three electric fence wires passing over the creek in the first half mile, low enough for you to touch if you raise a paddle high overhead. They are easy to see and easy to stay well below. DO NOT TOUCH!!! The creek is real easy and big fun through the beginning ledges until you get to the last ledge about a half mile from the put-in. Here’s a photo of it in the dry:
At the low water level we paddled the creek, we decided on a central path over the ledge. Along the river left bank was my original choice when I scouted in the dry, but the overhanging brush there was pretty thick. Most of the water was flowing to the far right, but there was a rock at the base of the drop on that side. The video link below takes you to a short film of our run, and includes us scouting and paddling (sliding) over this ledge:
Once you leave the ledges, the gradient slacks off to give an overall gradient of just 37 feet per mile. The video doesn’t show some of the largest rapids found in the middle of the run due to a problem I had with the camera. Here are some photos of them:
Two tree hazards need to be noted: the first is located about a mile below the put in and is easy to see. The creek has narrowed at this site with a tall hill on the left and a tall bank on the right. An 18″ diameter fallen tree spans the creek about four feet off the water on the low flow day we paddled. The main flow is along river left where branches extend down from the trunk and have caught drift. About a mile after that, past the BIG ledge that you will probably run on the right and several smaller ledges, the creek splits. The channel with the most flow has a large upright tree growing on the left of the entrance followed by a nine inch diameter tree growing horizontally across the flow, just off the water. The left end of that low tree rises high enough to get by. Right after that a large diameter leaning tree rooted on river left will force you hard over to river right to find clearance. I believe the creek has changed in this area since I scouted it in early 2012 and has directed flow to this congested channel.
Determining the water level is difficult. The Little Missouri gage at Hwy. 84 was reading about 5.7 on the day we paddled, dropping down from 10.5 feet two days before. The watershed was wet before that with a peak gage level of 12.5 four days before the 10.5 reading. A general rain of nearly 2″ over 12 hours will probably bring the creek up to a runnable level. Here’s a photo of the put-in area on the upstream side of the Hwy. 84 bridge on the day we launched that may help you judge the water level:
The drainage basin for Self Creek is located as shown on the map below:
Rainfall totals at the Hwy. 84 bridge over the Little Missouri are included in the gage information found at:
A radar produced rainfall total for the present storm over the area can be found in map form at:
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