Running fence across creek

[twoodcock@lendleaserei.com]

I need some ideas on how to run a fence across a creek.

There is a deep (10'+) creek bed that crosses my property north to south.
Currently my fences run along the west side of the creek, but this means that I
have some land being unused and inaccessible by the horses.  The creek is
twisty, so I actually need to run fence across it 4 times, once on the north,
and 3 times on the south.

This creek is dry about 1/2 of the year, only filling about 4' deep with spring
rains and sometimes in fall or winter.  It fills to the top of the chanel about
once every 3 years or so, depending on flash flooding upstream.  The bed is 10'
deep in most places and around 10' wide at the top.  Because is does have swift
waters in spring, it moves a lot of debris when it is running.  And it has a
heavy sand/silt bottom with is quite deep and soft.  In areas above the banks
where many years of flash floods have deposited much of this sand/silt, I have
to use 3 t-posts banded together to make it strong enough to run twisted
barb-less wire.

I need a way to fence across it to keep the horses on the property, but not have
it catch so much debris that the force of the water will push the fence over.
I've thought of maybe suspending a log or something on chains from tops of the
banks so that the horses are discouraged, but the log will float as the creek
rises.

Any ideas?

-Tamara

"Harry Browne in 2000!"
www.HarryBrowne.org