Safe water: Return to the river

The fun has returned to the Saluda River.

The river and its fans have been suffering since a sewage spill was discovered July 29. The river was declared safe Friday.

On Saturday, the 10 miles of river below the Lake Murray dam was hopping.

The good times started at the northernmost public access point, Saluda Shoals Park, and flowed down to the Gervais Street bridge.

THE PARK

Not long after Saluda Shoals opened Saturday, the big cooker parked next to the Paw Paw picnic shelter was smoking.

About 10 people gathered under the shelter. As the day passed, they were joined by about 140 more, some coming from around the country, but most from South Carolina, wearing blue “Wilson Family Reunion 2008” T-shirts.

In the early morning, some elders of the family, like Rose Reeder, worked on family trees with some of the youngest ones, like Deandre Caldwell, an elementary school student.

“It’s a good place to have it — lots of things for the kids to do, and some people might go out on the river later,” said Monica Caldwell of Columbia.

They had dinner at the park assembly building Friday night and planned supper there Saturday night. But for lunch, Johnny Reeder, complete with chef’s hat, watched the ribs and chicken.

The smoke and aroma from the cooker drifted though the woods and down to the river.

Jackie Muckelvaney probably didn’t notice the wonderful smells.

He was concentrating on staying still in the middle of a canoe between Bakari Priolea and Stephanie Frank.

Frank, a small woman with a big smile, looked confident and safe in the bow. “I came out a few weeks ago,” she called from the boat to the bank. “It’s so nice I wanted to come back.”

The two guys didn’t seem as confident, but off they floated.

On the opposite bank, at a landing off Corley Mill Road, several people launched kayaks and canoes, and two men, one garbed like a sheik, plopped into inner tubes and started the downstream journey.

No one in the 10-person extended-family group led by Bob Duval and Lee Smoak plopped into the water.

The lower Saluda water comes from the bottom of Lake Murray, and it is cold — about 72 degrees.

Marie Milhouse told her daughter, Trista, 15, to get in and get the cold-shock over with. But when Marie Milhouse sat on her tube, she let out a whoop.

“I thought you said it wasn’t cold,” Trista taunted. “What’s wrong now?”

Duval and Smoak regularly kayak on the river.

“We’ve been doing that for about three years,” Duval said. “The (spill) really ticked me off. We held off this trip because of that.”

Some of the family lives in Columbia, but others are from the Orangeburg area. For several, it was their first time on the Saluda.

They planned to float about 45 minutes to a rocky spot, where the kids could repeatedly run a small set of rapids.

“I live right up on Piney Grove Road, less than two miles away,” Duval said. “This is a great place.”

But he, too, found the water cold and started downstream lying stiff-backed across the hole in the tube.

THE ZOO ROCKS

During the height of the summer, the rocks just north of Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden can be so crowded it’s hard to find a rock to sit on. The surprise Saturday was how few people were on the rocks at noon.

A group of six, taking a break from a softball tournament, took it very easy, listening to a radio turned low playing The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar.”

Bryan Smith ferried a friend’s son and daughter on his back out to a rock in the river. They smiled, and he struggled.

Hopping rocks to the main channel, one could find Hunter Medlock and Trent Morgan kayaking in the rapids, while Matt Laroche watched. All three are Irmo High School students. Medlock and Morgan just started kayaking two months ago.

“We just got interested in it through friends,” said Morgan, pulling his boat up to one of the big rocks.

“After the spill, we went up to Saluda Shoals,” said Medlock, “but this is where we usually come.”

Jason Bunch first came to this part of the river 25 years ago when he was 7.

He grew up in Cayce, and his father took him to the west bank, where they explored the remains of an 1830s textile mill and a dam that diverted the waters into a canal. That area is now part of the zoo’s botanical gardens.

“My father used to bring the kids down, and now I’m bringing them,” he said, nodding at his son and daughter.

“This is our spot. This is the place we always come to.”

FINDING THE RIVER

The west side of the Gervais Street Bridge is where the Cayce-West Columbia Riverwalk starts.

In the parking lot, Melanie Griffin and Ashley Kersey were blowing up colorful floats.

They planned to go to the zoo and float down to the bridge. It would be the last summer outing before their friends Jaimie Goodwin and Jessica Robison go back to work Monday as school teachers.

Kersey and Griffin just finished their master degrees in social work. Kersey works at Lexington Medical Center, and Griffin is waiting for a Peace Corps assignment in Latin America.

“I’ve done the riverwalk but never been down the river,” said Griffin. “They wanted to do something fun before school started.”

Robison was astounded by the slice of nature right under a major road. “I’ve never been here in my life — ever,” said Robison, who lives just a few miles to the west. “I had no idea it was here.”

Reach Day at (803) 771-8518.