2008 Season Recap--Summer

My first Fife Brook trip of the season was May 10, which I am calling summer because it was warm and we were on a "summer" run. Nicole Vassar led the trip with multiple co-leaders, not including myself. It was a good run. I did some practice combat rolls successfully to get in the swing of things and build confidence. (I guess "practice combat roll" is a bit of an oxymoron.) I choose a difficult line for the Gap, eddying out left at the top and attempting to ferry to the river right eddy. I made the ferry, but missed the eddy and quickly did a 180 to run the right line. The right line is much trickier than the straight-shot boof line on the left and eddying out left and then running left is also easier than the right side. I think the right side is more fun because of the dance you have to do around rocks and holes. You can also catch a few eddies mid-drop from the right line.

We also had a great barbecue after the run with hot dogs, chicken sandwiches and ketchup taste tests.

The next highlight was a trip on the Dead the last weekend of June. I rode up to The Forks with Charlie Sweet, an open boater. This trip is an annual openboat trip at more open-boat-friendly release levels of 1800 (sat) and 1300 (sun). (This makes no sense to me; shouldn't the low level be on day 1 as a warm up?)

Maine had a ton of snow last winter. It was the snowiest winter in 126 years in places, I heard. When this snowpack melted, rainfall came, keeping water high for a long time. I saw pictures linked to a post on NPMB of people running the Kennebec at 12,800, with water coming down the spillway. For our trip, the release was a little higher than usual because the dam operator at Flagstaff Lake did not subtract out the flow of Spencer Stream in calculating the release level. As a result, the flow was more like 2050 cfs. I felt much better in the genuine class III rapids than in 2007 and hit a roll in the middle of Upper Poplar, which was the only flip of the day.

On July 13, I ran the Dryway at 1000, with help from Paddle Head, aka Casey, who showed me the easiest lines. I did a roll in a flushy eddy after rear-ending a rock. I did not flip again until the last drop of Labyrinth. I would have liked to have been further left, where the main flow is, but flipped and rolled Piscataquog style (360), proving that you can have too much hip snap. I washed through the waves/holes at the bottom, tried another roll and then decided to swim because I knew I was in the flat water. It was a good run altogether.

The first weekend of August, Paul Satwicz and I ran Fife Brook together. We were planning to run the Dryway, but we couldn't find any companions probably because the downriver race that day kept many away and I wasn't comfortable leading him down it myself having only run it once myself. It was a good time. At the Gap, Paul did not follow me as directed. The result was that when I eddied out at the bottom, I could still see Paul sitting in an eddy above it. I knew what was coming, as he ran the middle, flipping and rolling up at the bottom. After this, he said he was glad we hadn't done the Dryway, although in my opinion, there isn't a single rapid on the Dryway where the line is less discernible than the Gap.

I didn't paddle any more until the weekend after Labor Day. I was scheduled to go on the annual overnight trip to the Magalloway, but the trip was reduced to a day on the Lower Millers because we didn't want to experience Tropical Storm Hannah in tents. The Lower Millers was great. The rapids are much bigger than they look from route 2, solid class III the whole way. It was a beautiful day too and I finally got the last of the endorsements I need for a class III rating from the AMC, which was a long time coming.

We walked the Funnel, which made Dragon's Tooth look tame at this level (4.8). I thought that there was a possible sneak route on river left, but with our group of four, there was no way anybody was running it that day.

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.

2006 Season Kicks off: Farmington--T'ville

Today, I kicked off the 2006 paddling season. This winter, I went to many pool sessions, trying to perfect my roll and I think that that was a success. My goals for 2006 are:

1. Take the intermediate (class III) course with AMC at the end of June.

2. Take a playboating course (at Zoar most likely).

3. Run The Dryway (class III-IV).

Today's paddle was Tariffville Gorge on the Farmington River in Connecticut. It is a class II-III section with numerous playspots. I met Andy Novick, the leader of the intermediate course at my pool session on Tuesday and he said I should get some class III experience before the course in June. Since it was a class III, I had a pretty good idea going in that my roll would be tested.

I met the group of 5 at the put-in in the small village of Tariffville (an appropriate destination for Tax Day). The river here was very gentle and shallow and paddling upstream was easy. There were some class I rifles just downstream of the put-in, and the action gradually picked up. I caught a few of the little waves for some surfing, which most probably wouldn't consider worth the effort, but is still fun for me. After going over a small class II ledge, we passed the gage and entered the Bridge Abutments rapid.

At this spot, most of the current is squeezed between the right bank and one of the sets of bridge abutments about a quarter of the way out and there's a pretty good gradient. The others explained the line and the mid-rapid eddy we'd catch behind a ledge/rock on the right shore. I didn't think I'd make this eddy, but it wasn't pushy and I stayed close to the right shore, so it was easy to hit. We did a few ferries from and below this eddy where the current spreads out more and there are some rocks in the middle.

Next we approached the first class III rapid (Bridge Abutments is II+), a series of ledges with big holes, including a popular play hole. I ran the extreme left, avoiding all the holes and we pulled into a big eddy on the left. There were a few other people here surfing the play hole. I ate, then took a few rides on it myself. I'd never surfed a hole before, and this was a big one. It was a little hard to get too if you weren't going full steam out of the eddy, but I got into it a few times, flipping each time. I did get one sidesurf one time for several seconds. I rolled each time, although twice I needed multiple attempts to get up. I also carried up above the hole one time and punched it easily, which was very fun.

Below this point, all the rapids are class III, starting with another series of ledges with hydraulics and shallow rocks at their base. We scouted a line on river left (where the current is a tamer) into a pool. From this pool the others moved back to the center, but I decided to take a side chute on the left which looked a little easier and would be kind of cool because it was pretty narrow. At the base of the rapid, we did a few more ferries in the pretty strong current.

Next up was a stretch of flatwater before the most dramatic drop on the run, Broken Dam. The whole river flows through a 25'-wide break in the dam on river left. We scouted this drop as well. I decided on a route to the extreme left, to the left of a roostertail and down a little tongue. I lined up the route perfectly despite the blind drop. Shortly after going through the tongue, I hit a shallow but invisible rock and it knocked me over. I was anxious to roll up because at the end of the turbulence following the dam there is a car-sized undercut rock in the middle of the current. I had to wait a bit to set up the roll, however, as I hit a few rocks under water, including one off the helmet and one that hit my right paddle blade, causing me to let go with my right hand. I recovered, and set up the roll, hitting it and coming up in time to miss hitting the undercut. It felt good to hit an important roll in turbulent water.

After a short pool, the river split around an island. We took the left channel, which contained one more short class II rapid before the takeout.

It was a great trip to start the season with. The class III stuff did not seem terribly difficult, perhaps because of the relatively low water level and I was happy that my rolls were successful thanks to all the pool sessions over the winter.