We floated several sections of the North Fork of the White River this past weekend (Labor Day). We stayed at Twin Bridges Campground and also did our boat rentals and shuttles from there.
The first day we had a four-person raft, a canoe, a sit-on-top kayak, and our two whitewater boats. We did the section from Hebron to Twin Bridges. It was beautiful scenery, but the water level was quite low. Low enough, in fact, that we did nearly as much portaging as we did floating. There just isn't much current on that section, and with the lack of water all five boats dragged. There were a number of strainers due to downed trees, and if the river had been any faster or pushier beginner paddlers could have had difficulty. As it was, it was enjoyable but slow and tiring (five miles in seven hours). We tore up the bottom of the raft (a tough $300 raft, not some cheapo float toy) pretty bad.
The second day we left the raft behind and got a second canoe along with the sit-on-top and the whitewater boats. This day we ran the lower section, from the Blair Bridge put-in to Dawt Mill. This section, below several springs, had much higher water level and faster current. It was gorgeous! The water was incredibly clear, and even the requisite drunken rednecks (after all, this river is only an hour from the Spring in AR) couldn't ruin the fun. Even at the lowest spots in the river, none of our boats did more than just scrape some rocks. We ran eight miles in about four-and-a-half hours, and that was paddling pretty slowly. For the whitewater boats it was the Missouri version of the Alabama Death Paddle of Bear Creek, but it was a great chance for people who had never been in whitewater boats before to try them on flatwater and a few barely Class I rapids.
For the whitewater folks, the only thing we saw that looked like fun was a chute with a nice wave train and a good hole below the Dawt Mill dam. Sadly, with our time constraints on the rented boats and the fact that we had left our helmets behind, we did not try it out.
I recommend the second run, Blair to Dawt Mill, to anyone looking for a pleasant family float trip. We had a four-year-old and a two-year-old in the boats with us (at one point riding on top of the spray skirts of the whitewater boats--I've never seen a little kid sleep as comfortably as my niece did on the deck of the Lil Joe as we floated downriver) and they thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Lots of nice places to stop and eat, and swim in the river, and find shells. The scenery is beautiful. The upper section would have been just as nice if the water had been about six inches deeper.
