For those who didn't know, there IS creeking in Arkansas!

By Boyd Ruppelt

I get asked a lot of times how we paddle out of Memphis and while me
and Sam seem to spend a lot of time driving east, my typical answer
isn’t what you’d think. Despite being a flat water town miles away
from any sort of gradient, Memphis is situated in the middle of a
variety of different watersheds and there is literally whitewater in
every direction. The only problem is that it’s all a minimum of 3
hours away. Extra traveling aside, if it rains in the southeast we’re
about equal distance from everything. Arkansas gets the rain first so
many memphis boaters take off to chase storms in the Ozarks before
following the rain east. Imagine creeks as tight and steep as the
smokies, a ledgy Alabama feel, crazy logistics, with jagged rocks,
more undercuts, occasional barbed wire strung across by an armed,
angry land owner, flashier watersheds, mixed in with huge slides and
occasional waterfalls and that’s pretty much paddling in Arkansas. So
why go? well the whitewater quality is actually really good and the
paddling crowd there is actually huge and full of some of the
friendliest people I have ever paddled with. So I thought I’d share
a piece of Arkansas creeking… A few recent shots and a few old
shots where I’m in a pink, borrowed Punk Rocker…