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Written by Ryan McCall

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 13 April 2010

Hits: 34

Organizer(s): Ryan

Date: 2010-04-08

End Date: 2010-04-11

Kayakers (K1): Jason, Dan, Brenton, Art, Wayne, Simone

Predominantly: Advanced WW

Water Level: Medium low

This past weekend was the scheduled annual pilgrimage from PeeYea for a handful of my creek boating buds.

This year Jason, Dan and Brenton headed up on a Wednesday night from Harrisburg to the Glen Falls, NY area. They broke camp early and got on the Mettawee and Furnace Brook to get the weekend started right. The Mettawee was at a good medium flow and there was enough water in Furnace to make a run out of it. From their report when I saw them Friday morning there was a Dead deer in the second tier of Calfee falls.

Friday Jason awoke to a stomach flu and it dogged him the rest of the weekend...We also picked up two other boaters from PA and Simone (Fastest boat on the NH Ledges). Off we went to the Lamoille drainage only to find the NBL too low to bang down....bummer!!! We did get in a decent run on the Gihon though. All drops were styled including two partial runs of the Mustang. The Dam owners are sending mixed signals as the lady came out and gave us hell and a talk with her husband later was in complete contrast saying he enjoyed watching the boats go down and though anyone to portage the dam was nuts. Looks like some diplomatic outreach to the owners to clear up the situation would be a good thing. FERC would definitely side with the owners if they decided to get serious about cutting off access there. Anyways the run went well with only one swim in Spinach at the Carpet Factory by the group's esteemed squirt boater.

The next day we all met at the Famous Wayside Diner and beat feet over to NH for a run on the White Mountain Classic...."The Upper Pemi". We ran it from the Basin down though several quality rapids including the parts of the North Pole, Wham Bam, Sentinel, and more or less a couple more miles of quality class 4 read and run in an amazing gorge. The run started in the 20s and a blizzard under the watchful eyes of Cannon and Lafayette and finished with bluebird sunny skies. Once we were off the river we beat feet over to the Wells and got in a speedy dusk run on the regularly run section. Everyone liked the action on one of the VT classics.

Sunday the group broke and Simone took Art and Wayne to Texas Falls and Middlebury Gorge....I took Dan and Brenton to the NH Ledges for a lap. We were a ways behind Tony's group and no one was behind us so we had the river to really take our time and pick down different lines. I was trying out a new creek boat (think I am going to be getting a Bliss Stick Mystic) so was not feeling overly chargy any ways...It was a nice mellow end to a pretty action packed weekend......

Oh if I didn't mention this...if you are feeling your oats and can handle never ending class 4+ water read and run with a couple of really stout class 5 drops. Go see this river. It is AMAZING!!!!!

Here is a video from 4/10's runs... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Yqb7vYLgU

Enjoy

Details

Written by Tony Shaw

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 11 April 2010

Hits: 1544

Organizer(s): Tony Shaw

Date: 2010-04-11

Kayakers (K1): Eric Carpenter, Jim Fecteau, Jamie Dolan, Pete May

Canoers (OC1): Tony Shaw

Predominantly: Advanced WW

Water Level: Low boatable

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: USGS 04282525 NEW HAVEN R. @ BROOKSVILLE

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 375

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 4.35

A.J. traveled down Rt. 5 from East Burke to East Barnet early Sunday morning to get a visual on Joe's Brook, which was "just a trickle". Plan B options included the Mettawee, the Poultney, and the New Haven Ledges. None of these appealed to A.J., but we agreed we'd run Joe's together - one way or the other - before the end of April. Moving on, I made the call on the message board to meet up in Bristol at 11 am to run the ever-popular NH Ledges.

After gearing up at the take-out, we pulled over on the way up to the put-in to examine the best route around the "pin rock" above Play Pen. It was good timing, for us, as another group of boaters was in the middle of a real-life rescue of a kayaker vertically pinned in that exact spot. Noone was hurt, but I wish I had taken a couple of pictures to make others aware of this hazard at low water.

The water was sparkling in the sunshine, and the level held steady at ~375 CFS all day - low and technical but definitely boatable. It got above 50 degrees, tempered by a strong/chilly west wind once you were all wet. There were swims at Lost Legs and the Play Pen, but in each case a rope was tossed to keep the swims short. I impressed a father/son spectating at Toaster by attempting it in an open canoe, and moreover hitting the boof/tongue perfectly and landing upright (and virtually dry) in the pile at the bottom - my first completely clean and upright run of Toaster!

I will post a few Paddle Pix for the day.

As kayakers go, Jim, Jamie, Eric, and Pete are good eggs. I'd paddle again with them...any time ;o)

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Written by Richard Larsen

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 11 April 2010

Hits: 35

Organizer(s): Richard Larsen

Date: 2010-04-10

Kayakers (K1): John Atherton, Chris Weed

Canoers (OC1): Tom Berry, Richard Larsen

Predominantly: Nov-int WW

Water Level: Medium low

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: East Georgia

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 1800

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 4.80

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge URL: 3

We delayed the put-in until early afternnon, and that worked out very well. The morning had been cold, but the sun came out around 11 AM, and by 1 PM the sky was totally clear. Of course, when the sky clears this quickly, it means that a front is moving through, and that usually means wind - which is always an upstream wind on the Lower Lamoille.

The water was low for mid-April - 1800 cfs versus a normal of 3000 cfs, but this is well above the minimum boatable of about 1000 cfs.

This was also the first day of trout season, so the two main problems on the river were 1) fighting through the wind and 2) not running into fishing lines. The rapids themselves were reasonably mellow.

We had two canoes and two kayaks. We met just below the dam at Fairfax Falls, unloaded all the gear, and drove to the take-out at 12:30 PM to leave a few cars. We were able to start down the river just after 1 PM. As planned, the trip down to the top of Arrowhead Mountain Lake took 3 hours. We didn't play much, because the canoes were delayed so much by the wind. At the upstream end of long flat sections there were whitecaps and waves rolling upstream, and sometimes the canoes could make reasonable progress only by paddling right along the shore, where the overhanging tree limbs reduced the wind.

We rested our old knees by getting out of the boats at an island below the first rapids, and were surprised to see a weasel-critter playing along the opposite bank, swimming into the river and getting snacks. We debated among river otter, weasel, or mink, and settled on weasel - but looking at the Vermont Critters website it probably was a mink. There was another one down near the takeout. The only other notable wildlife was the usual collection of merganzers.

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Written by Gerard Ganey

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 08 April 2010

Hits: 33

Organizer(s): Gerard Ganey

Date: 2010-04-07

Kayakers (K1): John A, Dave H, Dan, Ryan, Francis, Woody, Chris W

Rafters: Gerard

Predominantly: Int-adv WW

Water Level: High

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: Moretown

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 1200

Well... A 4:00 thunderstorm turned a falling Mad into a rising Mad. The Mad peaked at 1350 cfs at 10:00 p.m. last night, we took off the river a little before 8. It was an evening full of swims and portages. I apologize if the details are skewed and I will correct them.

Everyone ran the put in rapid cleanly. At these levels double drop had a troublesome curling wave at the bottom. Woody hit the curling wave and swam. John paddled right into the hole on the first drop and swam the second drop.

A few of us scouted the drop below the bridge on river right. Then ferried back to river left. John got up close and personal with the main pillar on the bridge and swam. Class 2 brought us to the calm before Horseshoe Falls.

Everyone portaged the falls, which resembled a hydraulic death trap. Ryan and Francis opted to bounce down the low flow slide on river left. Chris, Ryan, Dan, Woody and I all ran the Washing Machine cleanly.

John had his final swim for the day in the rapid below the beaten down Lovers Lane Bridge. There were no swims on the final drop. We spent a good amount of time surfing the bottom wave which is awesome at these levels. Packraft had the best surf of the day.

Overall a day where the river handed out many lessons.