West

To get some more class III experience, I headed up to the West River in Vermont for the weekend. Last fall, I did the Lower West, a class II run, but this time the purpose of the trip was to run the class III section immediately above that.

I drove up late after work on Friday night after a short detour to pick up a critical item I had left at home. I got into the Motel 6 in Brattleboro, VT at 1:20 AM. It was a beautiful night and on one straightaway on the highway I turned off my headlights (briefly!) to look at the stars.

I left the motel at 7:55 to get to the put in at 9, the meeting time. I paced the Mapquest time by 10 minutes, including a stop, so I could have slept longer :-(.

I found Josh, the guy from my pool sessions I'd arranged to paddle with and other assorted characters in our group, some of whom had met online at the Northeast Paddlers Messageboard. Josh explained that he stayed at Vern's house, another one in our group, the night before and that I could probably stay there that night. This meant that I had to drive back to Brattleboro to check out of my motel by noon to cancel my reservation as I had reserved for both nights. I would miss the first run, but that would be okay, because there would be 2 or 3 that day.

When I got back to the river, I had to wait about an hour for the group to get there after their run. Afterwards, we ate lunch and it was decided that we would run the lower in the afternoon, which was fine by me. We took a different channel around an island than I had taken in the fall. It was a lot narrower than the other side, pretty boney and no where near as pushy.

Below the confluence of the two channels, we caught up to the AMC group that included Artemis, Andy Novick and a few other familar faces. There was a pretty good rapid here and I did some ferries. I talked to Andy and Artemis a bit. Andy said he saw me catch some eddies in the middle of the river that other people wouldn't see. I'm not sure where he could have seen this, but it's good to get a compliment from him. I really hope I get to take his course in June.

The waves at Ducky Dump didn't seem as big as in the fall, but it could be just me. By the way, I've never heard this rapid called by that name, only referred to as "The Last Rapid."

One of the local paddlers had a big dinner at his house nearby and afterwards we went to Vern's. They woke me up at 6:30 AM and I was pretty tired. I went back to bed while they finished breakfast. We then drove back to the takeout and waited a while for the rest of the group to get there. It was a cold morning and I was still tired, so I rested in the car for a bit.

Finally, with the air warming up quickly, we did the shuttle up to the dam, the start of the class III section. Josh, Vern, one other and I portaged the very first rapid, which is quite big, fast and shallow, described by some as a class IV. After we put on, there was some pretty good action. There were plenty of waves and holes, a little bigger than the lower, and not as many ways to avoid hitting some feature.

I flipped a couple of times on some squirrly eddy lines on river right, but rolled each time. I followed Vern closely past Boof Rock, a class III rapid with some pretty big waves, maybe 6' or more.

After a few more bends, we reached the toughest rapid on the run, The Dumplings. I followed Josh closely through the truck-sized boulders of this rapid. We hugged the left side of the first one, then ferried hard toward river right to avoid being slammed into the second one. I ended up too far to the right, headed towards the third boulder. I tried to ferry back to the left but flipped over. I tried to roll quickly to avoid hitting the rock, but I was rolling against the current so I didn't make it. However, the current swept me away from the rock and into the middle. I tried two more rolls in some big waves, but I was still going against the current. I was expecting my first swim of 2006, but I made it on my fourth attempt, when I was finally turned around and wasn't fighting the current. I guess it's time to learn my offside roll.

There were a couple of surfing waves below here, but we were at the take out shortly. We ate a quick lunch and ran the lower again, which was a little anticlimactic.

It was a great trip (Friday night not withstanding)and I was pleased to have made it down the class III section unscathed. I am now 11/11 on combat rolls in 2006, which is excellent. That means I'd have to swim 12 times in a row to not have a 50% roll, which is the guideline for the intermediate course. Even with last year's roll, I would not swim 12 times in a row. So I'd have to say the season's off to an excellent start, with the help of all the pool sessions over the winter.