Dryway

I got really behind on blogging, but here it goes. On my July trip down Fife Brook, I discovered when I got home and unloaded my car that my paddle had water in the shaft. Luckily, I had only had it for 11 months, so it was still under warranty. It took 2 months to replace it, so in the course of waiting for it I had to borrow other people's paddles. One of the people I called was Vicky, the trip leader from the first T-ville trip in April, who said she would be running the Dryway most of the remaining release weekends. Since the Dryway was one of my goals for the season and I thought it didn't look too bad from the cataraft, I decided to go on Sunday, August 27.

Immediately, I was overcome by trepidation. I didn't lose any sleep, but that Sunday morning I was very edgy. Vicky drove and tried to allay me a bit and did. The run started off very well. I ran Factory Rapid clean, rolled after I scraped a small pourover between Disappointment and Split Hair. At Split Hair, I planned to follow the others, but I did not start the right to left ferry soon enough because the move was so abrupt and I wasn't expecting it. So I ended up running the far right--the hero route. It wasn't that bad really, just a few jutting rocks to push around and some medium sized holes to punch. Actually quite fun.

At Left Turn, a big wave flipped me over, but I quickly rolled on the first attempt and was feeling quite good. I did think it was a little pushy, but I didn't think there was anything I couldn't handle until Dragon's Tooth, which I had been 90% sure I'd portage all along. The next rapid was Dunbar Brook, the longest rapid on the river. Vicky told me to follow her down the classic eddy hopping route. At the first "must make" eddy, I ended up too close to her on the ferry and had to slide downstream a bit so as not to crash but in doing so I missed the eddy. I was then going downstream, facing 45 degrees upstream towards river left going into some big waves. I got flipped over on the first one and couldn't hit any of my roll attempts in the big water. I ended up swimming the rest of the rapid. That was about enough for me. I had to run False Tooth to get to a point where I could carry out easily, but it was just a short, easy class III.

The portage involved a ferry and some class V boat dragging, but it was definitely the right thing to do. Maybe next year I can run this in its entirety.

Fife Brook

I did not get to paddle for three weeks, so I decided it was imperative that I get out, even though all I could do was Fife Brook. Luckily, they were releasing 850 cfs instead of the usual 750, so some of the features were bigger and I didn't run aground in the middle of the river once.

It was a nice group, 6 kayaks and 2 open boats. Tony, from two earlier Fife Brook trips this year was there. We spent entirely too much time at Hangover Helper; sometime, I will run it straight through, catch no eddies and tell the group I'll wait for them at the first playspot. It was not the warmest morning, so I wanted to avoid any flips and therefore did very few ferries. Two of the others showed me how to double pump, which is one way of initiating a cartwheel by slicing your bow under. I could do it a little but it did make me flip. I still wasn't in the mood to do a lot of ferries at Hangover Helper though.

Finally we went down. When we got to the first playspot, we found it to be fairly washed out. It looked like there would actually be more surf in the microeddy used to catch the wave than on the wave itself because a lot of water was going over the rock that forms the microeddy. Looks were deceiving however. I got one decent ride on what was left of the wave and none on the "eddy." We decided to leave pretty quickly.

The rapid above the railroad bridge had noticeably bigger water and there was some play to be had. The big hole right before the bridge was a little more like a wave at this level and also better to surf on. It did not tend to want to spit you right out as much as normal and you could surf on top of the foam pile without going all the way into the hole.

We had lunch under the bridge, and after we left I got some very long rides on the waves just past the bridge. The next section was tolerable with the extra water, deeper and faster, but nothing more than class I-.

When we got to the rock garden, me and another demonstrated some stern squirts for someone else in the group at the first big boulder (known as Squirt Rock). On my second squirt, I flipped and rolled, but had floated past the eddy by the time I got up. I pulled into the first eddy on the side I could find, which was a ways down, and I had to wait there a while for the rest of the group to finish squirting. The rest of the rock garden was fun; I found a few chutes between boulders to go through.

The wave at Miami Beach was bigger than normal, but it was also harder to get to because of the increased flow. The current seemed to speed up in the last boat length before reaching the wave, which caused me to miss it twice. When I finally got onto it, it flipped me after about 5 seconds--a good 5 seconds. I missed two roll attempts before making it.

After Miami Beach, I ran the right channel and the two open boats followed me. It was nice for a change and had some biggish waves despite being shallow.

I decided I wasn't in the mood to run the Gap because I wasn't up for the scary ride that is too short to enjoy. I watched Tony and two others go through. They ran the right-hand side clean, which wasn't as bony as usual because of the extra water.

It was nice to get out after three weekend off and the extra water was definitely a plus despite the first playspot being washed out. I was also very happy to have hit all four of my rolls, an improvement over last time, perhaps helped by some flatwater practice at Squam Lake the previous weekend.