Double Dipping on the Deerfield

Today I ran the Dryway and Fife Brook back-to-back.

It proved to be a very tiring day, mostly because after I put in on Fife, I sprinted to catch up with the AMC group, led by Kimo Lindon, that I was safety boating for.

But the details on the Dryway run first.

Without Casey holding my hand, I had to pick my own lines. I also promised the ad hoc messageboard group that I did not have to stop to scout Dragon's Tooth. The result: six combat rolls compared with one in July. One of these rolls was in the runout of the Tooth, which was quickly followed by another flip and voluntary, non-combat swim in the pool between the Tooth and Labyrinth.

There is something to be said for these swims where I know the river well enough to know that I can make it to shore without swimming any rapids. There is more to be said however, for the fact that a roll takes less time to get to air than pulling the skirt, pushing out and resurfacing does. Furthermore, rolling spares the others the difficulty of bumping my boat to shore and the lengthy boat emptying process.

Labyrinth ended midway through the rapid this day, so I did not have a chance to redeem myself on the drop where I had a similar swim in July.

Because of the staggered release schedule (10 AM Dryway; noon Fife), I was able to do the double dip and catch up to the AMC group, whom I wasn't scheduled to safety boat for until the next day. But I decided to surprise them and caught up with them just as they were leaving the railroad bridge after lunch. (I quickly ate mine during a stop farther down.)

It was a pretty uneventful trip, with no rescues. Because of the legal issues involved and the fact that I hadn't signed the AMC release form, Kimo and I agreed that I was not a part of his group; I was just "following" them. (Maybe I shouldn't post that on the internet?)

When we got to the Gap, one of the people on Kimo's trip agreed to film me going through the Gap. Here it is:


9-13-08 Gap Run from Andy Stuart on Vimeo.

Pretty lousy place to start the ferry, as the intended destination, the river right eddy, doesn't even enter the picture. I had to contend with the extra flow (1000 or 1200, I'm not sure, but a lot higher than the usual 750) and the trashy eddy line, which was further complicated by the extra flow coming off the river left ledge. (BTW, there is a sieve between the rock that forms this ledge and the one slightly farther upstream and center that marks the river left side of the main tongue at the top. If you are running the easy and popular boof line on river left, be sure to stay very close to the left shore to avoid this potential trouble spot.) Going over the two rocks was not a new experience for me; I had done it earlier in the summer too thanks to the high flows of most of the season. It does make for a more interesting video to see me going over the two rocks.

I ran into Ed Vassar at the Gap, who was there running the Gap continuously. He said he was planning to run the Quaboag the next day. Although I was signed up to safety boat for Kimo, I couldn't resist the chance to run the Quaboag. When I missed meeting up with Kimo's group for dinner, I left word that I was headed home instead of camping and headed for the Quaboag the next morning from home.

First Fife Brook Run of 2006

I signed up for a Fife Brook club trip this weekend with the AMC. With all of the rain on Wednesday, there was some doubt about whether or not the water would be too high for it.

The leader was Harland, the same leader as on the W. Branch Farmington trip last fall, so I was expecting an open-boat-heavy crowd. There were a lot of open boaters-six-but almost as many kayakers, five. We decided to go in two groups, determined by type of boat.

The kayakers consisted of myself, Conrad, Tony, a middle-age woman whose name I forget and her daughter who couldn't have been more than 11. (A future pro boater).

It was a cold morning, autumn-like, so the temperature did not make me want to do any practice rolls. Sure enough though, I blew a ferry at Hangover Helper and rolled right away (first attempt).

We got to the first playspot (Carbis Bend) and I got some good surfs on my initial rides. I did not stay on as well after the first three though. I stayed upright the whole time here.

We headed on down and Tony and I just missed what looked like a great surf wave at the top of Freight Train. I forgot about the big hole right before the railroad bridge and punched it. Then I tried to surf it a couple of times, but it spit me right out each time without flipping me. While the others were eating lunch, I did some stern squirts under the bridge, all but one of which resulted in a roll.

After lunch, we headed down and I did one more squirt and roll. We hit the few small surfable waves before the long, flat, shallow, boring stretch before the rock garden.

The rock garden had never been one of my favorite rapids on Fife Brook because I think people catch too many eddies there and go too slow as a result. This is still true of course--I opened up a big lead on the field during this portion--but I found that the rock garden has many good sidesurfing spots. I got two good sidesurfs, but I didn't keep my upstream edge up enough on the second one and got turned over, hitting the rock that was forming the hole. I couldn't locate any new scratches on my helmet though.

We came to Miami Beach, but I didn't manage to stay on the wave at all. I did stay upright though. The trip around the island and through the squirrelly spot where the channels come back together was uneventful.

After another long, flat, shallow, boring stretch (these are the reason some people hate Fife Brook), we reached the takeout above The Gap. I was unable to find anyone willing to run it, either from my group or another group of kayakers, some of whom I had met on the West. So I had to wait for the open boaters to come down, which took forever.

In the meantime, Tony decided he wanted to run it and found a stray kayaker named Alan who wanted to run it too. When the open boaters got there, we scouted it and they decided not to run it either. I was disappointed because I wanted to go down it following someone experienced, but we decided to run it anyway. One of the open boaters lowered his boat into The Gap with a rope to catch us/our boats if we swam.

After much deliberation, we decided to run a line just right of center, the idea being to just miss the holes to the right. The order was Tony, me, Alan. We got through the lead-in unscathed, unlike my attempt last fall, and proceeded down the initial tongue. I saw Tony go over in the first or second hole because he was too far left. I was too far left too and I believe I went over in the same spot. I was able to roll before the third hole, which impressed Alan a lot, but I was facing upstream when I came up and got flipped right back over by the bottom hole. I rolled again in the pool at the bottom, as did Tony. Alan stayed up the whole time, so the open boater did not get any rescue business.

I convinced Alan to go past the takeout with me down to the place where the railroad tracks cross the road, a portion I had not run since the first day of the beginner course last summer. We got a couple of extra surfs, including at least one sidesurf by me.

It was a fabulous day overall, no swims, each roll was on the first attempt and plenty of surfing.