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Written by Michael Mainer

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 20 May 2018

Hits: 189

Organizer(s): Late snowmelt

Date: 2018-04-25

End Date: 2018-04-29

Kayakers (K1): Mike, Robyn, Chandler, Anders, Tom, Catherine, Dave, Tanner

Predominantly: Int-adv WW

Water Level: Medium

Painted Gauge Height (ft) e.g. '3.3': 2

Heading back from field work in Montpelier on Wednesday, I noticed that all the little creeks in the Mad River Valley were starting to fill up.  I made a slight detour to check Patterson, finding it at a pretty much perfect level… with no one to paddle with of course. Sort of the story of spring 2018… not really much of anyone out boating, despite the extended, late, healthy snowmelt season we enjoyed. Fortunately, a few emails later Chandler was heading over.

With one to two inches of water running over the gauge rock this run is amazing!  Things are not too big but everything is nice and fluid… a true perfect medium. We did two efficient laps on this wonderful creek, stopping to check for wood in a few places.  Things are actually in good shape wood-wise, though there is some wood hanging over the runout of the diagonal holes that looks like it will fall in pretty soon and make a nasty log jam.  Other than that there is just a lot of green moss, a few waterfalls dropping into the river and some really nice class III-IV rapids… like there’s always been.

On Thursday Robyn wanted to head over, and brought Catherine, Tom and Anders as well.  The level was a little bit lower but well within the nice medium range. We did two more really nice laps.  An added plus this time was how clear the water was. It’s hard to convey just how good this run is at a nice level… it’s active, interesting paddling but really forgiving… you’d be hard pressed to find an undercut, sieve, pothole or bad pin spot on the run.

I paddled elsewhere on Friday and Saturday, but folks were interested in heading back Sunday morning.  We had myself, Tanner, Anders and… Dave! It had been a few years since I’d boated with Dave, and in fact it was Dave who had shown me this run 8 years ago.  The level was a fluid low, just spilling over the middle of the gauge rock. We did two more laps on this surprisingly chilly day.

After that I went to take a quick look at Thatcher Brook down in Hancock.  It is a very interesting looking run.

So that is how to enjoy snowmelt, and it’s also nice to see folks actually out paddling after work!

Details

Written by Michael Mainer

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 12 May 2018

Hits: 189

Organizer(s): Mike M

Date: 2018-05-12

Kayakers (K1): Mike M

Predominantly: Intermediate WW

Water Level: Low boatable

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: USGS East Branch Pemi at Woodstock

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 700

Yes, that’s right, the East Branch of the Pemigewasset.  Where all the wealthy, famous and fashionable New England paddlers go.  Or at least they should, but didn’t. I got a couple miserable excuses: “Too low” (it was holding around 700), “The Saranac is in” (the Saranac isn’t 10 miles of impeccable class III-IV) and so on.  I guess this river, once one of the most trendy and fashionable paddling destinations in the northeast just doesn’t stack up to not paddling at all, even on beautiful late spring days.

Actually, doing this run alone was sort of nice.  I didn’t have to work on convincing anyone to do the hike into the upper section (because there was no anyone), and I didn’t have to convince anyone else to hike past the normal upper put-in and go even farther upstream - one of my goals for the day.  I ended up going about 2.5 miles past Franconia Brook (or over 5 miles above the roadside put in) before I decided that I needed to leave time to actually paddle. My hiking was rewarded with a couple of the best solid class IV boulder gardens in the whole Pemi watershed. This was a nice surprise, in addition to the miles of great, continuous class III, pristine water quality and wilderness scenery.  I also ran into Greg and Sawyer Hanlon, who were in packrafts and a little surprised to see another boater up there.

Most of the run is in great shape, with a lot of the messy cobble piles left by Hurricane Irene mostly eroded away.  The floods last fall cut an entirely new channel in one place, leaving a solid quarter-mile of the old riverbed almost completely dry.

Loon Mountain Rapid also changed a ton—it’s unrecognizable compared to the past-Irene version, and is a vast improvement over the shitty, rip-rapped sluice that the ski area left when they replaced the bridge.  The new version is a steep, clean drop over and around huge granite boulders well upstream of the bridge. There were two older open boaters here who absolutely crushed the bottom hole in their gigantic boats

On a side note, if you’re in the Whites when things are running, check out the Zealand River—it’s one of the nicest-looking creeks I’ve seen.  It probably runs when the Sawyer runs.

Details

Written by Christopher Weed

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 13 May 2018

Hits: 189

Organizer(s): Chris Weed

Date: 2018-05-13

Kayakers (K1): Chris Weed, Jeremy Anderson, Charlie Beyer, Chris Frost

Predominantly: Int-adv WW

Water Level: Medium

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: SARANAC RIVER AT PLATTSBURGH NY

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 2100

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 5.25

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge URL: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/uv/?site_no=04273500&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060

The Saranac had been running high for over a week, but by the week of May 6 showed promise of coming down to a sensible level, with little rain expected for the next several days. I posted about a possible trip, and Charlie expressed interest. By Thursday Jeremy had emailed me about the trip. Early on Friday I posted a plan to meet on Sunday morning, and Chris Frost signed on.

By that time the gauge was down to 5.5 - 5.6 feet, a nice medium level. I hoped it would hold into the weekend, and it did (at 5.25 feet). Saturday was sunny but chilly, but Sunday looked ideal, with a forecast high of 70 F or above.

As usual, we carpooled to the Grand Isle Ferry from the Milton Park and Ride (I-89 Exit 17) and met at the Maplefields convenience store on Route 3 in Redford shortly before 1:00 pm. After checking out the large rapid above and under Ore Bed Road just upstream from the store, we decided to change at the usual takeout (2.1 miles farther upstream) where Silver Lake Road meets Route 3 (in Clayburg). From there the shuttle up to the put-in is about 4.2 miles. (On the river, the distance is about 5.5 miles.)

By the time we started down the 200 yard put-in trail the weather felt like summer, and the sky was a gorgeous clear blue. Jeremy and Charlie were new to the run, and I was glad to see them experiencing the river with such beautiful weather and at a solid medium flow. We paddled uneventfully for the next 45 minutes or more down to Tefft Pond Falls, taking in the wild surroundings on the edge of Adirondack Park. The initial rapid right after the put-in is a nice extended warmup, which includes class 3 features at higher flows. After that is an extended meandering stretch of flat water through a wetland.

It ends abruptly at Tefft Pond Falls (Class IV-IV+), where we stopped to portage and scout the falls. I had seen it run on a couple of occasions by that time (by Max Redman and Noel Bailey) and knew of another run by Jamie Dolan. (Undoubtedly there have been many others by solid New York paddlers in years past.) All these were at lower flows (4.7 to 4.9 feet). As indicated, we elected to portage, but a run was certainly not out of the question. At 6 feet and above the drop is arguably Class V, with wood almost always a complicating factor.

The next rapid brought us to the top of the big Class III-IV cascade where mishaps usually occur. Jeremy and Charlie took the meaty line against the large central island, while Chris Frost and I took a couple of more conservative lines to river-left. Chris went right against the left bank, which includes a tricky bend and a couple of holes that can cause problems. He handled it without incident, and we met up in the large pool below. After surveying what came next, Chris took off and worked left, with me following farther to the right.

I focused on maneuvering through the staggered ledge holes in this section, and lost track of what Chris was doing. At the bottom of the rapid I looked around, and saw that Jeremy was giving chase to a boat. It quickly became evident that Chris was swimming. He self-rescued fairly readily on river-left, and corralling his boat became the main problem.

We ended up in front of the one house that fronts on the river below Tefft Pond Falls, where some confusion ensued. I pulled into an eddy and threw my paddle on shore, capsized my boat while trying to get out of it, and lost my water bottle in the process. At that moment I saw Jeremy scrambling to exit his boat, get on shore, and start running after something. I thought at first it was my paddle, but it turned out to be his; mine stayed where I threw it. Somehow in the midst of all this we did indeed rescue Chris Frost's boat, and were able to regroup and continue on down the river.

At the time I was worried that the owner(s) of the house might be home, and would strenuously object to our use of their riverfront, but nobody appeared. I've heard stories about unfriendly landowners along this stretch of the Saranac. Fortunately it is generally easy to stay either on the water or out of sight, or both.

After that episode we were able to relax and enjoy the continuous 2+ miles of rapids that follow, including the one remaining substantial drop on the run, where the river splits around an island. Plenty of easy whitewater follows, with some nice surfing opportunities, especially on river-left.

Running the Saranac can make for a long day, but the run to the upper takeout only took us about 2 hours. At 5.75 feet or above many may consider it worth using the lower takeout and running the rapid above Ore Bed Road, although this entails paddling about 1.5 miles of shallow quickwater (mostly Class I) to get there.

During a reasonably wet spring the Saranac stands a good chance of having good flow well into May. There are few things better than experiencing the wilderness feel of this run with a clear sky, warm air, and cool but not cold water. I continue to highly recommend it. (By the way, the Saranac is part of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail.)

Details

Written by Jim Poulin

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 10 May 2018

Hits: 188

Organizer(s): Jim Poulin

Date: 2018-05-09

Kayakers (K1): JimP, JimF, ChrisW, ChrisM, Paul, Rita, Hugh, Max, John

Canoers (OC1): Steve

Predominantly: Intermediate WW

Water Level: Low boatable

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: Middlesex

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 440

Ten of us gathered on a warm (80 degrees) spring day.  This was the "Team Edition" trip.  We had the following "teams":

Team Centrifuge: JimF & Max  (they were fun to watch flopping all over the place)

J-Team: JimP & John

Eddy Hop Team: Hugh & Steve

Team Chris: ChrisW & ChrisM

Father / Daughter Team: Paul & Rita

And we will not make mention of any swim team members...

Since it was so sunny and warm we took our time getting through the first few rapids.  Yes, there is still wood in the S-Turn rapid but we all missed it.  We burned so much daylight by the time we hit the Route 100 bridge we needed to hustle a bit to get to the take out by sunset.  We made it with a few minutes of daylight left.  By the time we took out the temps were still in the mid 60's!

Everyone has a great time.  Why can't all days of paddling in Vermont be 80 degrees with enough juice to get us downriver?!?

jimp