Boy Scouts 50-Miler Award, Eleven Point River

[Jeff_L]

I outfit a group of 20 every year for a couple days. We put a personal cheap cooler in each boat for lunches with things like oranges/clementines, granola, summer sausage, string cheese, peanut butter, crackers, no fridge yogurt drinks, jerky, Craisins, etc. Replenish the personal coolers each day from a main cooler. Jambalaya is an easy and satifsying sand bar meal. Use canned chicken, bacon chunks from a bag (Costco/sams) or just cured slab bacon, minute rice with premixed seasonings and haul along some onions and peppers for the boys to dice for you, and chicken boullion cubs. Brown bacon, throw in veggies to saute, put in some river water and boullion, boil for a few minutes, toss in rice and chicken. Catch some crawfish and toss them in for a really authentic meal. You can make a giant pot in less than an hour over any campfire.

There are plenty of access points on the 11 Point. Go early and stash cars at each access with coolers with food/drink replenishment, you could stash 2 - 4 cars your first couple hours down there with a little planning. We do that on every river (mostly for replenishing the beer coolers). With Google Earth and GPS, it is fairly easy. It is also going to give you plenty of options for emergency removals if (when) a kid gets sick, either physically or of the I want to go home-variety.

[lollygagger1]

Be aware that the Eleven Point allows jet boats on the river. Weekdays are OK but Sat & Sunday it can turn into a zoo. Most drivers showed respect but a few wouldn't slow down or yield. The access at Whitten was a mini-city with about 100 people crammed in an area with 3 campsites.We took out there last Saturday. Boats,campers,generators, RVs, ATVs, kids all over the small launch ramp. The area is to be closed and revamped later in the year along with a little more effort to clear the area and enforce some common sense rules,. Lots of traffic on a very small road.

We floated Cane Bluff to Greer Thursday & Friday and the water was really low. Doubt if floatable this week. Didn't catch many bass upriver from spring, but the few we caught were bigger than average. Greer to Whitten caught very few , every gravel bar had groups of Jet Boats on them. Doubt will float this river on a weekend again. We used Jerry Richards for shuttles and canoes for non-owners. Have used Richards for years. We had a group of floaters ask us when the bus ride at Whitten left ? Asked what arrangements they had made. Said not sure and didn't know if they were suppose to camp overnight or what. Talked to Jerrys grandson and he said they passed Whitten looking realy confused 30 minutes earlier. The canoes had an outfitter name that is not on this que. Did not appear they had much gear with them. Jerry said that most of the old float camps haven't been mowed so far this year.

Water color upriver was a little milky, at Greer fairly clear and gets a little dirty around Whitten,

[LarrySTL]

To keep everybody from opening every cooler looking for each item they want about a zillion times a day, you might as others have said, pack the coolers and label the ones that hold the bulk of the food as Day One, Day Two, etc, with something as simple as numbers on a piece of ducttape stuck on each cooler. Designate only a few specific people as being allowed to open those coolers.

Also, those frozen 1/2 gallon or gallon plastic bottles of water are ice until they melt, and are cold water to drink when they do melt. Similarly the big frozen bags of pulled pork are ice before they thaw, and then they are dinner. You could add stew, red beans and rice, or lots of other things to the menu the same way and slice potatos for stew, cook rice for the red beans, etc as needed to cut down on the need for cooler space.