Dorsey Creek

A Mulberry tributary courtesy Alf Van Hoose. He and Steve ran it in December 2009.

The temperature was in the thirties but the day was sunny. A nice day for a mellow run down a possible class III creek in Cullman county. We decided to put in near Hwy 69 across from Bit's Grocery to avoid what appeared to be at least 1/2 mile of pasture land creek downstream from a bridge on CR30. The first 2 miles were boring except for at least 5 annoying trees blocking the pasture land creek bed. Note that the Mulberry was running 8.7 feet but Dorsey was running low. We managed to sneak under some of the logs but almost all of them would require a portage if you run this creek at a medium or high water level. The scenery improved when the creek turned right in front of a hill then left into a gap thru Arkadelphia mountain. There were a few class II drops in the first mile of the gap. Then finally there were big rocks blocking the view downstream signaling the start of about 1/4 mile of continuous class III action. I named the first drop Boulder Squeeze because you can run around a boulder blocking the end of the rapid either by squeezing thru the left or the middle chute. At high levels this rapid might merit a IV classification. Unfortunately the creek resumed its pasture land crawl for the final 1 1/2 miles of the run. This will probably be my only Dorsey creek run because the class III action is not enough reward to offset the miles of pasture land creek.

No pictures. Others may have some from previous runs. I only claim to be the first to provide a good description of this Mulberry tributary. If someone is not polite to the owner of Bit's Grocery and the house across the street by respecting the landowner ROW, then we can expect No Trespassing signs to appear at our short cut put-in. Be courteous and ask for permission if possible.