What I did on my Summer Vacation

                                                                                Ginny Herreid


As some of you who know me, know that I love to be on a river. It doesn’t matter a lot which river, but I prefer smaller and more remote rivers to the large busy Might Missouri. This year I became acquainted with the White River of South Dakota.

First of all, I learned that the White River originates in Nebraska, in Sioux County, in the pan handle, not far from the community of Harrison. From there, the White wanders its way eastward, by Ft Robinson and the City of Crawford as it turns Northeast toward Chadron and finally into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota.

Time does not allow me to name all the tributaries for the river. Most of the year, I would image they are dry anyway. Interestingly, the White River flows North for quite a way similar to the Platte River, which flows north out of Colorado, into Wyoming and then it turns South into Nebraska, taking it by Gering and Scottsbluff. The White starts out flowing East, then North, Northeast, and then turning East again until it joins the Missouri River just south of Oacoma. As it passes through the Badlands for much of its journey, it picks up a significant amount of white sediment, giving its appearance and hence it’s name. Word of warning to the readers; some assumptions are being made as I write this.

Most of my real river adventures have involved traveling with the Dakota Adventure guides out of Pierre, (http:www.adventuresd.com). I have traveled with them on the Cheyenne River and Missouri River too. My other river adventures include local lakes and the Big Sioux, close to my home in Trent, where my fellow Lovely River Rat, Judy Austad and sometimes my daughters join me. Back to my story about the White.

So, twice this year, I traveled the White River from our get-in point where Hwy 47 crosses the river. The first trip, with a large group from Missouri, offered a more than adequate amount of water to travel on. It was late June and the summer rains had been more than generous to the river. With the rainfall this year, the prairie was green and beautiful. We didn’t see a lot of wild life, except for what was in the air, since we had a large noisy group. We saw one ranch early in the trip and then saw no other people or houses until leaving the river.

The trip from Hwy 47 to our get-out point, just into the Missouri, took just two days. If you have one of the topo map books, you should be able to see the area on pages 54-55. We traveled through a lot of game production area so we saw very little livestock. On this trip, with the river so high, we did not see much evidence of beaver as we did on past trips on the Cheyenne. Our guide, Caleb Gilkerson says that is typical of high river phases.

On the second trip, we did see a beaver one morning and lots of dens dug into the side of the banks. Until I was on the Cheyenne River, I didn’t realize that beaver would dig into the side of the river banks. As the river was down significantly on the second trip, we had an interesting go of it. Since the Spring rains had been so heavy, it gave the White a chance for change. A characteristic of rivers is that they are ever changing. Just ask any farmer with land along a river. The channel of the river had been moved and almost eliminated in many areas. The water was just high enough to hide the new channels so we got a lot of exercise as we found ourselves stuck on hidden sandbars.

Both trips, unique in themselves, were wonderful. I loved seeing the grasses at different stages and colors, the river at different stages and meeting new people on each trip. For me, the river is a place of safety from the bombarding of life. Gathered around the campfire, watching the sunset, eating each meal in the splendor of God’s creations is better than any sort of therapy. I can’t wait for next summer to find another section of a South Dakota river to explore