Contoocook

One of the instructors from last weekend, Ken Green, emailed this week wondering if anyone wanted to go paddling in New Hampshire this weekend. With no plans for the holiday weekend, I decided to go. We did a short section of the Contoocook River in Henniker, NH, very near the ski area Pats Peak. Ron, another student, and I carpooled and we met Ken and his wife and another couple at the put-in.

The first stretch of water was very easy. We again caught just about every eddy, but the current was so small that getting back out was easy. Once we got into Henniker, the current picked up and there were a few rapids. I flipped trying to get onto a surf wave and had a short, uneventful swim. A little farther down, I tried to get into an eddy on the side of the river, but it was a very small eddy and I trickled out of it. The side of my boat got stuck on a rock a little farther down and the boat started to tip. Certain I was going under, I let go of my paddle and pushed off the rock, freeing myself of it, but not the paddle. I hand paddled into an eddy a short distance down and watched my paddle swinging back and forth against the rock. One of the others rescued it.

Shortly after this fiasco, I noticed that one of my feet felt very loose on its footpeg. My leg was not pressed into the thigh braces anymore. We pulled out to scout the last rapid, which was running class III-, and I discovered that a screw that holds the track for the footpeg was gone and that water was getting into the boat. I considered skipping the final rapid because I did not know if I could do a hip snap fast enough on the broken side and the water made the boat heavier and less maneuverable. When we scouted, skipping it looked like a much better idea. At this rapid, the river bends around a broken dam on river left, but if you go too far right, you end up in some nasty rocks. You want to stay to the right however to avoid some holes in the middle. Precise moves that I decided to skip, which I think was the right decision considering the state of my boat.

It was not a great day with the swim, the paddle blooper and the skipped rapid, but it was better than sitting around the house all day.