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Written by Tony Shaw

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 27 April 2009

Hits: 1141

Organizer(s): Tony Shaw

Date: 2009-04-25

Kayakers (K1): Jamie Dolan, Dave Hurley, Chris Weed

Canoers (OC1): Tony Shaw

Predominantly: Int-adv WW

Water Level: Medium

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: Loon Mt. Ski Area

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 1140

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 6.93

OMG! Between 3pm (when we put on) and 8pm, the windy, sunny, HOT weather had a tremendous effect on the level, doubling the flow from 1000 cfs to 2000 cfs at the Loon Mt. USGS real-time gauge. 80 degrees at the end of April in NH's snow-capped White Mountains will do that!

The guidebooks say that people sometimes carry upstream on the Wilderness Trail 3 miles or more to run the pristine sections of the EBP above the Kancamagus Highway. That is not anything I ever expect to do with a canoe! But the 6 mile section downstream from the Wilderness Trail parking area to the confluence with the main stem Pemi is plenty attractive and contains plenty of class III action at this level. About a mile downstream from the put-in the Hancock Branch enters on the left, which would have been fluid enough to run today.

Passing under the bridge @ Loon Mountain, 3 of us chose to take the more conservative (and a little bony) left side of the island, and one chose to call it a day. I flipped and had a pretty long swim once after Loon, just so I could attest to how very cold the waters of the EBP can be, even on an 80 degree afternoon!

The closer you get to the take-out, the more hemmed in the river becomes by (largely vacant) ski family condos, all of which are well-kept but can't help detracting from the scenery a bit.

Near the confluence the remnants of a dam are easily spotted from upstream. Bank scouting (and lifting over) on river left was the prudent thing to do, on this day. The hard-to-miss graffiti there pleads: "Don't MASS up NH".

After passing the sewage treatment plant and passing under I93, take the small channel to the right of the island if you've left your shuttle vehicle behind the fire station in North Woodstock at the little park that is located there.

I posted a few photos in the VPC Paddle Pix area. The camera batteries died, or we would have many more photos to make everyone jealous that they missed this trip!

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Written by Richard Larsen

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 25 April 2009

Hits: 37

Organizer(s): Richard Larsen

Date: 2009-04-24

Canoers (OC1): Richard Larsen, Len Carpenter

Predominantly: Nov-int WW

Water Level: Medium low

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: West Hartford

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 2300

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 5.70

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge URL: 17

Being retired (plus old and decrepit), Len Carpenter and I headed down to the White River to take advantage of a glorious Friday. The day was warm, low 70s, the sky was totally cloudless, and the water level was decent, even if a little low.

We did a loop-shuttle. We both drove down the Interstate to exit 3, went to the take-out east of Gaysville, dropped a car, put both boats on the other car, and went to the Tweed River put-in. At the end of the day, we put both boats on the dropped car, returned to the put-in, and both of us headed back to Burlington via Route 100.

I have run both the Tweed and the White at lower levels. At this level, nothing was 'big', but you could get down the river without hitting rocks, unless you took a wrong channel in one of the braided areas. The first rapid of any substance was the drop that ends where Stoney Brook enters. The changes to this rapid continue. The left bank collapsed about 5 years ago, and the left channel started to deepen. Before, almost all the water went right of the old railroad bridge supports. Now, it all goes left, with the left side having lowered about 6 feet. The rapid has even 'moved' upstream, and is a respectable class 2 at this level.

After this rapid, we had the first of our 'get out of the canoe and see if you can walk' events. This all looks pretty funny, unless you happen to be a participant. Havign old knees is not fun - we have to stand for about 10 seconds before we can walk. After break, and some lunch, we headed down through the 'lunch spot' ledge above Gaysville, which was lively. Continuing, we saw a bat above the river near the Gaysville Bridge, flying at high noon, possibly affected by 'white-nose syndrome'. We saw a second bat another mile down, and then we saw a peregrine falcon near the large cliffs north of the river about a mile downstream from Gaysville while stopped at our second 'see if you can walk' break.

We reached the takeout just beyond the lively roadside rapids after about 2 hours and 45 minutes on the river - including at least half hour of break time. Since we don't play the drops, the actual float time was only a little over 2 hours.

It was a trip that was as good as it could get - assuming you are OK with relatively easy whitewater.

Details

Written by Richard Larsen

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 27 April 2009

Hits: 29

Organizer(s): Richard Larsen

Date: 2009-04-27

Canoers (OC1): Richard Larsen, Ed Amidon

Predominantly: Intermediate WW

Water Level: Medium

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: North Creek, NY

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 3900

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Height (ft), e.g. '2.96': 5.50

I tried to have a Lower Hudson trip on Saturday, when it was 80+ degrees, but only Ed Amidon signed up, and I then had late-developing conflict. So, we moved it to Sunday, but still got no additional takers. We decided we would go anyway with just the two of us, since the river was at a relatively benign 3000 cfs. Sunday turned out to be a bit wet and cool, so we decided to move the trip once again, to Monday, since we are both retired, and since Monday was to be yet another 80+ degree day.

We went. It is a lot of driving. Since there were just two boats we decided to keep it to just the section between North Creek and Riparius. The river came up a lot on Sunday and Sunday night, probably from the high-peaks snowmelt from Saturday. The flow was 3900 cfs.

We put on the river at North Creek at 11 AM, and finished at Riparius at 1:20 PM. The day was glorious, with bright sunshine, quite warm air, and only a moderately annoying upstream wind.

Most of the rapids in this portion of the Hudson are caused by ledge systems, often river-wide, and often the best route is to run right down the center, since the ledges can be most eroded there. The water is usually quite turbulent in the center, with crazy diagonal waves, but this often avoids the rocks and pour-overs nearer shore. But, river-center can be intimidating, since the Hudson is a big river, and shore becomes a long way away.

The river was class 1-2 until about an hour into the trip, when we hit a 200 yard long class 3 rapid with 3' chaotic waves in the final drop. All went well with just a little water taken on. The difficulty built in the second hour, with more frequent class 2+ and 3- rapids. Finally, about half-way down Spruce Mountain Rapids, the road bridge came into view - and that meant it was time for the lower half of Spruce Mountain, where the difficulty increased to a solid class 3 with multiple successive ledges. We cheated the first few ledges by finding a route near the right shore, but had to give in and move center for the final ledges. The only real problem was that Ed got a bad leg cramp as he was paddling through the final ledges, but he made it fine.

We were glad to be ending at Riparius. We had commitments back in Vermont later in the day, and we are both realizing that paddling more than a few hours causes real problems to old knees - which unfortunately we both have.

Details

Written by Ryan McCall

Category: Trip Reports

Published: 21 April 2009

Hits: 1449

Organizer(s): Ryan

Date: 2009-04-19

Kayakers (K1): Jason, TJ, Dan, Brenton, Ryan

Predominantly: Advanced WW

Water Level: Medium

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Site: Otter Creek - Middlebury

Primary Realtime USGS Gauge Flow (cfs), e.g. '797': 1700

A day of creeking transformed into a huck fest due to the late start and physical state of two of the paddlers in the group. Staying up and out late doesn't bode well for a day-break assault on the river especially after 3 long days of boating prior.

So I punted and we headed to Middlebury to give the PA crew an opportunity to huck their meat off of Middlebury Falls. With a couple of guys in the water for safety, Brenton took his turn at the falls. It was at a fairly meaty level of 1700cfs so the ledge hole below the falls was relatively sticky looking. The kid (Brenton) aced his boof of the 18ft. falls and sliced through the hole shortly below (pictures to follow). The rest of the group decided to take on the 3-Brothers class V meatloaf sandwich and headed up the hill for some caloric energy.

Now pushing 4:30 everyone seemed to wake up a bit (talking about an alpine start) and on our way back home I suggested we hit up Warren falls....about that time we drove past Texas Falls and I hung a "U-ie" and we headed up to Texas Falls Rec area. The levels were such that it looked very runable and surprisingly there was no wood in the creek. With safety set, Brenton and Jason tag teamed the first 3 major drops with Jason swimming out of the second one and stuck in a pot hole he needed roped out to get back to his boat to finish the run. In all they ran from just above the major drops down about a 1/2 mile. There were some ugly lines and a couple of flips to quick snap rolls but they stayed in their boats for the remainder.

This was the end of a long weekend of creek boating around VT. For basiclly no water, we did a great job of finding some great runs with enough water to make it fun. Thursday the guys hit the WBD at about .5 on the gauge on their way up to meet me. Friday we got in the Clarendon gorges and a guided tour of the Big Branch (thanks Russ). Saturday we found enough water (the coldest water of the weekend) spilling over the bladder at Joes Pond for a 10 mile wilderness run on Joes Brook and it's famous Greenbanks Hollow Section. Sunday the plan was the Middlebury Gorge but we got lemons and made lemon-aid with some great waterfall drops at Otter Creek Falls and then Texas Falls. I'd say it was a solid 4 days of paddling for the crew.

We ended the weekend with food and beverage at Eagan's Big World and I think when everyone walked out of the Pub there was a look of tired satisfaction on their faces...I couldn't tell if it was from the pints imbibed or the 4 days of quality VT boating.