Piney River Run: Nine Times, Still Charming

Piney River before the boats launched

As surely as the Piney’s course will change, so will the shape of every annual trip. My former night gig now has hosted ninth trips down the river in Hickman County.

Until 2016, I made the journey every years since the inaugural float in August 2009. We had all of 10 people on that trip, a number that seems quaint compared to the peak of 80-90 a few years ago. I skipped the eighth trip , not wanting to spend a whole day on the river explaining what happened to my arm to every person I’d not seen since the last trip. So I slept in and broke my streak.

This year I was determined to return. I prefer to start any Piney trip with a simple routine. Arriving before the livery office opens, I walk the entire beach and campground, let the dew my feet and view the Piney’s last bend before leaving the campground. This Sunday, the minnows and tiny river fish sparkled in the rising sun, a ribbon of bait in the clear currents.

The Piney flowed more strongly than I had seen on any trip in years. The rainy summer boosted the water levels, wiping away the shallow spots that forced even the lightest paddlers to drag their boats. Having floated the river just days after a storm, I was also relieve the flow did not reach rates where the five-mile stretch could be floated in 90 minutes. Handshakes and hugs. The trip is a gauntlet of familiar faces, of catching up with people not seen since the last river trip. Then it’s onto the bus and picking out a kayak – the campground added some sit-in boats with dark green bodies, making my choice simple.

Down the ramp to Big Spring Creek that leads into the Piney, I walk rather than float. The creek is in a shaded gully with frequent gravel bars, so I would rather wait until I can paddle freely. I tried to float the narrow stream one year, and wound up wedged in those rocky walls. Of the creek mouth, I loaded up and paddled off. Expected drag spots in the river never materialized. The water speedily flowed over the plots of smooth, polished rocks, which did not impede me as they normally would.

The first stop arrived a mile into the trip, a broad sandy beach on a river bend with ample room for swimming, fishing and relaxing. More familiar faces, more handshakes and hugs. The coolers opened and the Champagne emerged. The bubbles flowed freely.

Through the years, the Piney trips have winnowed out potential malcontents. Anyone who causes trouble doesn’t get invited back. People who might cause issues don’t get invited. The ninth trip lacked anyone who might qualify. It was a friendly bunch. Perhaps due to getting older, the emphasis on alcohol diminishes.

After catching up with most of the group, I waited for the bulk of the boaters to paddle on. The next stretch often boasts some technical spots – uprooted trees or bends and currents that push unwary paddlers into tangles of roots. Today the Piney simply flowed, most obstacles cleared onto the banks. Before I got within a quarter-mile of the second stop, I heard echoes of the jumps and dives. I had my dalliance with the rock in 2009 and haven’t bothered to return. I had reasons for paddling on.

Beyond the rock lies one of the river’s few technical spots, a bend replete with shallow runs and frequent boulders that spits boaters into a placid lagoon before bending again. On an October 2016 trip, I dumped and nearly lost my boat, the worst averted thanks to timely intervention from Jason Ross. The Piney's 2017 course did not have the tough turns and swift currents of past iterations, and I moved through the bend quickly, then sat around the lagoon to await the crowd plunging from the rock.

I had plenty of people time on the Piney, so a little balance with solitude was necessary. Soon waves of familiar kayaks and canoes poured out of the bend and onto the beach. The higher water levels reduced the levels of carnage – Wade’s term for boats crashing and dumping on the river – but a few turned over along the bend.

After the first stop and the rock-jumping stop, everyone beached their boats primed for lunchtime. Wade’s friends shredded two smoked pork butts, ensuring no one finished the trip with an empty stomach. The men who smoke the meat join us on the river trip, so it’s always as fresh and delicious as possible. They stuff mounds of pulled pork onto hot dog buns and the whole party feasts. With a bellyful of pulled pork, I felt ready to move on.

The cove hustled with activity –squirt guns fired, festive music radiated from waterproof speakers, dogs shadowed people eating sandwiches, footballs flew through the open spaces, the last of the sparkling wine passed around the banks. I spent the last two miles in near-total solitude, floating past other groups of paddlers resting on the parks. The sun was relentless at this hour. Every bend and twist felt simpler to pass than the last.

This was the Piney I treasure, not the low-water slog of last October. I saw the second rock, the final stop for most boaters and today no one occupied its flat top. On the latter half of the Piney run, the southern cliffs soar 50-60 feet above the water at times, while the north bank alternates between shorter ledges, beaches and dense forest.

At certain places, the Piney is a river of ghosts, populated by the phantoms of past trips. I can Jason and his friend Adam fishing on a quiet point. I can see Justin and a small cadre of restaurant folks resting on a bank with earshot of the take-out. At the time I asked him what caused this stop so close to the finish. He said something along the lines of “Once we get back in the water, the weekend is over.” It’s a hard sentiment to argue.

As it always does, the take-out arrived far too quickly, and I grounded my kayak among the dozens lining the chaotic beach. Following an hour of traffic, I was home.

The end of another Piney run always catapults me back to the 2010 Piney River Run, the second trip. I left the house before the sun rose and returned as it dropped for the night, the rays reaching my sun-beaten skin as I hit the front door. I remember feeling a peculiar peace, knowing I had to go to work the next morning but oddly relaxed and refreshed.

My skin and my liver don’t take nearly the beatings that they once absorbed, but the river trip has been a recharging moment during many Nashville summers, a single Sunday of old friends on a river that reroutes itself too often to grow familiar.

Obviously I did not take enough pictures