Hi all - Planning a river trip to FL. Read alot of the availability of camping on sandbars in the rivers.
How is done?
Is there a chance of flash floods (A danger in Colorado)?
Would the gators come up on the sandbars during to night?
TY for any inputs
sandbar camping
how it’s done: as the evening comes on pull up on a likely sandbar and make camp. come morning, break camp take everything you brought with you and continue your trip.
flash floods: not likely with the general low topography in florida. with large rains the water will come up, but not with the violence you’d see in an area with steep relief.
gators: certainly, they can get up on any sandbar they choose to climb. however, they are no threat to you (with the odd exception) unless they have been habituated to humans with stupid people feeding them. dogs in your party would also be at risk, and i’d keep an eye out for any small kids playing in the water or near the water’s edge. an adult is, generally speaking, too large to fit in the alligator’s view of prey. paddled around a lot of them over the years and i’ve never felt threatened. the canoe camping along the suwannee is great!
harry
sand bar camping
My nephews and friends have done some camping on sandbars in the Fl Panhandle rivers … Yellow River is one, and also a river over about an hour west of Tallahassee.
They’ve never had issues with water levels …
Not much to go on, check with “locals” but most of the rivers ( I’ve done day trips ) are “lazy” and it would take quite the storm to flood you out, imo. But check the “locals” …
Sandbar camping…
seems really neat until you try to get the sand out of everything you brought. You may wish to get back into the forest a bit.
Anyway, the panhandle rivers offer the best oportunity that I’m aware of. There are areas along the Gulf coast rivers, but harder to find.
Yellow river and Blackwater River are very nice, lots of privacy. The Chipola is great too, but less of the high, dry sand bars.
Check the sandbars for animal tracks. You’ll see lots of things, but alligator tracks will be very rare.
I think they prefer more open areas like lakes, large rivers, and marshes.
Flash floods are not a concern. Most of these sand bars are several feet above the water level (At least recently) and a good thunderstorm won’t bring up the river much at all.
Do contact local paddlers for information, as you may avoid water too shallow, or too many recent treefalls. Treefalls are a major fact of life here, and we don’t need hurricanes to jam the river.
Please do come down and try it. It will show you a world that Disney can’t match.
T