Kids Kayaking Adventures on the Locust Fork River in Alabama

This is a story about my kayaking adventures on the Locust Fork in Alabama. We we ran this river just a few days ago and it was my first river run of the season. Before we even made the trip, I had to search and find all my kayaking gear so we could bring it across the country to one of our favorite places to kayak, Alabama with my friend and teammate, Jeremy Adkins.

As we got ready and drove to the river, I was so excited.  When we got to the river, I got dressed and ran down the hill so I could do a few practice rolls.  We had a lot of people with us.  My mommy and daddy, Grady, Brody, Kady, Kenny, Dally, Cardy, Rowdy, me, and our friend Jeremy.

The Locust Fork was a great first river run because it was pretty easy and Rowdy got to come and he had a really great time.  He even tried a practice roll, but missed it, so he has to work on his roll a little bit more.  We thought the whole river was super fun.

Most of the Locust Fork is little ripples and you get to practice reading the rapids because there is really no danger.  These little rapids are super fun too.

So, then Double Trouble was coming up.  I had promised my mom and Jeremy that I would do both Double Trouble and Powell Falls if my mom let me make Kool Aid before the run.  I was a little nervous because last year Rowdy and I decided to portage this rapid.  But no-one told us when we were about to paddle Double Trouble.  They just told us the line and I followed Kady down and Rowdy followed my mom. We just paddled hard down.   I almost flipped on it, but had a great brace. Double Trouble was a little hard, but that made it super fun too. When we got to the bottom, everyone told us that was Double Trouble and I was so surprised, I thought it was going to be much worse.

After Double Trouble we paddled a lot of little waves.  These little waves were so fun, mommy followed me down it.  I really like leading down rapids.

We paddled a lot of flat water before Powell Falls.  We paddled hard and we paddled backwards, we raced and we splashed each other.  Even this was fun.

Then Powell Falls came.  I’d seen it already, last year, so I didn’t want to scout it because I thought I would feel too scared and chicken out.   I followed Daddy; Mommy followed me; Kady followed Mommy; and Rowdy followed Kady.  It was big and looked scary, but it was pretty easy.  And, guess what?  Neither Rowdy nor me flipped!  We totally styled it.

Then we paddled to the side and hopped on the big rock.  We jumped off this rock a bunch of times, pushed each other in and did flips!  This is super fun.  Everyone else ran Powell Falls over and over.  My mom flipped every time!   Jeremy and Brody SUPed it.  Brody did a hand-stand going down it and almost stayed up!   When we started getting cold, everyone ran Powell Falls one more time and then we paddled down the river to Ender Hole.

Ender Hole is a cool hole.  It’s hard for me to get any tricks, but I caught it and I surfed it a couple times.

Since Rowdy was struggling with his roll and he was cold, he didn’t surf it.  Everyone else did cool tricks.  Dally threw a Lunar Orbit!  He was really excited about that!

After Ender Hole it is just ripples to the takeout.

After running the river Grady, Brody, Kenny and Dally went digging in the woods to find old bottles and river glass with Jeremy.  A few days later Kenny & Dally were covered with poison ivy It was really bad.

We lived Happily Ever After.

The End.

By Maddy

Check out our video of our fun time on the Locust Fork!