By Tom Douglas 

Walk for the Wild is a national event to get people moving in support of national wildlife refuges. This year’s celebration was scheduled for Saturday, October 7. Funds raised from the activity will directly support wildlife conservation, nature trails, and environmental education in our community. The location for our local celebration was the Champion Lake Unit of the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge, which is in Liberty County, TX near the community of Old River-Winfree.

 So that we would be prepared for the on-the-water portion of the event, four of us planned to scout out conditions in advance on Tuesday the 3rd. The rainfall that morning was torrential, with visibility at times close to zero along Interstate 10. Still, all four of our dedicated river scouts managed to arrive at the meeting place. After hunkering down for a while in the entrance area for the building that houses the Refuge’s restrooms, we noticed that the weather forecast showed a window of a couple of hours of lighter rain.

Not wanting to venture too far from the launch site, we decided to scout out conditions on Champion Lake, where paddling instruction classes were planned for Saturday’s event. This meant that we would have to scout conditions for Saturday’s paddle on nearby Pickett’s Bayou on the fly, but it seemed like the safest option. (See the map at the end of this article.) 

One of the first things we noticed was a large number of roseate spoonbills. At one point, 13 of them were all lined up in a row, with numerous ducks just in front of them.

Conditions were pretty gray, but still there were some beautiful views that were worthy of a photo.

The showy plant species of the day was definitely the American Lotus. Most of the blossoms had faded by this late in the season, but many of the tall stalks were now topped with seed pods, each one 3-4 inches across. When rain showers came, the sound of the falling raindrops was amplified when they hit the huge floating lotus leaves. 

Heading northeast along the levee, we observed that water was flowing slowly through the culvert into Champion Lake. Under normal circumstances, Pickett’s Bayou receives outflow from the lake, but today’s conditions had raised the water level in the bayou higher than what was standing in the lake, reversing the usual flow. This was made possible partly by the low level of the lake, which was a little below 4.5 feet according to the lake’s staff gauge.

Along the levee, we noticed grapes and several other interesting plants. 

Heading back southwest toward the main part of the lake, we observed a brief boat-and-paddle tribute to Taylor Swift.

All in all, it was a truly magical time on the water. The light-to-moderate rain was intermittent, and the lake water was pleasantly warm to the touch. We were able to scout out conditions for Saturday’s paddling instruction area on Champion Lake even though we didn’t make it to nearby Pickett’s Bayou as we had originally planned.

You can view more photos from our scouting trip in Joe Coker’s photo album. To see how the trip to Pickett’s Bayou turned out four days later, see the article in this issue of the Bayou Banner.

Photos by Joe Coker, Tom Douglas, and Natalie Wiest.