2008 Kayaking Season Recap--Spring

There is no doubt that 2008 has been a banner year in the number of days I have paddled, the progress I've made, the comfort level I've achieved and the responsibilities I have been given on AMC trips.

In late March, I received word that I had been recommended to be a co-leader for AMC trips. After a meeting with other recommendees led by Amy Wong, I was certified to co-lead trips. I have yet to serve as one, however.

The season kicked off on April 12. I was set to meet ChuckS from the message board at the Searsburg Dryway on the Deerfield in Vermont. This dryway has no scheduled releases and only runs during periods of high runoff from snowpack (and New England had tons of snow last winter) or floods. This is a continuous class III run normally, but extremely high flows make it a IV. The water is incredibly clear, and the rocks in the riverbed were easy to spot from the road through the shallow, quick water. On this day, the flow was very high. I later found out it was 2500 cfs, which is 500 cfs more than the level Bruce Lessels says is too high in the guidebook. Not knowing the exact flow and not being sure I wouldn't be upside down in the shallow, continuous, rocky rapids, I opted to pass. ChuckS and his friend(s) ran it and later reported that it was great.

I instead embarked on a photo safari working my way down the Deerfield basin, snapping photos of the West Branch, regular (Monroe Bridge) Dryway, and Fife Brook sections. Some of these photos can be found on the corresponding AW page; and the rest can be found on my photo page.

After the Deerfield tour, I went to the Wave-o-Saurus and got some more photos and videos. I also got some surfs in.

Two weeks later, Paul and Nick Satwicz (see photo above) and I went to the West. Nick is Paul's youngest child, a senior in high school at the moment, I believe. Paul and I ran the upper while Nick did homework in the car and then we all ran the lower. It was Nick's first time in a whitewater kayak on a river and he acquitted himself quite well, even pulling off a roll with limited practice.

The next weekend, I ran the Quaboag for the first time with Randy, Glenn, Dustin, Lauren and others from NPMB. It was a good day and I got a lot of confidence from running the trickier drops. I also got some good videos at Quaboag Drop, the abrupt 4' ledge in the middle of the gorge section.

Here are the videos:


Running the Gorilla Line at Quaboag Drop from Andy Stuart on Vimeo.


Randy sneaking left at Quaboag Drop from Andy Stuart on Vimeo.

Why I'm not worried about Obama losing

The Palin pick has energized enthusiasm for the Republican ticket, pulling McCain ahead in national polls. The first reason this does not worry me is that, in the Boston Globe this week, Democratic political experts were quoted as saying that this uptick is a temporary bounce and it will eventually die down. I assume that this means that once Palin is done being completely controlled in public by campaign handlers, some of the voters she has attracted--mainly independents--will be turned off by her hard-core conservative positions.

But that is not the biggest reason I am still optimistic about Obama. In a nutshell, polls mean nothing. The electoral college means everything. John Kerry won states worth 252 electoral votes in 2004. If Obama carries all these states, he needs to add only 18 more electoral votes to win.

Breaking down the states Kerry won, the following are almost certainly in the Democratic (blue) column (defined as >70% probability of Obama winning as of this morning on Intrade).

California (55 electoral votes)
Oregon (7)
Washington (11)
Minnesota (10)
Wisconsin (10)
Illinois (21)
Pennsylvania (21)
Maryland (10)
Delaware (3)
D.C. (3)
New Jersey (15)
New York (31)
Maine (4)
Massachusetts (12)
Vermont (3)
Rhode Island (4)
Connecticut (7)
Hawaii (4)


Strongly leaning blue (<70%, >65%):

Michigan (17)

Leaning blue (<65%, >60%):

New Hampshire (4)

So Obama should acheive Kerry's 252 as a baseline.

Winning either Ohio (20) or Florida (27), would put Obama over the top. Florida looks like a long shot; this morning the quoted probability of Obama winning was only 36%. Ohio looks like a toss up at 57/43 in McCain's favor.

But Obama does not need Ohio to win, though you can bet the house that he will give it the maximum amount of effort there (Something Kerry neglected to do by not speaking in Cleveland in the days before the election).

The following states can put him over the 270 electoral votes needed without winning Ohio:

Iowa (7 EV's, 74%)
New Mexico (5, 60%)
Colorado (9, 55%)
Nevada (5, 44%)

Given that Ohio and Colorado are tossups, and assuming New Mexico and New Hampshire hold, I like his chances to carry either Ohio (making 284 total electoral votes) or Colorado (273), or both (293). According to Intrade's probabilities and my assumption that NM and NH will hold, the mathematical odds are almost 3:1 that Obama will carry either Colorado or Ohio, or both; and win the election.

Kayaking Update 2006-2007

The remainder of the 2006 season did not produce any particular highlights. After the bad Dryway experience I ran the West in the Fall with Paul Satwicz, a lifelong neighbor, family friend and member of the same church. He stopped boating ~1982 when he started having kids, minus the occasional trip to Cohasset. He made his first roll in 20 years on the West and it was a good time despite the rain. I ran the New Boston gorge in mid-October at the minimal release level. I rolled five times and my helmet acquired dents each time. After the fifth--a particularly hard hit--I decided enough was enough and took out. I did run Bear Trap later in the day, which was a great time. (And no dents). My last run of 2006 was the Green River, starting in Vermont and finishing in Massachusetts near Greenfield. The water was too low to justify its class III rating, but the scenery in this remote valley is unbelievable. I'd highly recommend it just for the scenery, especially in the Fall.

2007 was not as active as 2006. There were some lowlights, particularly when I had to abort my 2400 cfs Dead run at the gravel pit due to two swims and at least one roll. There were, of course, a few Fife Brook runs and I ran the Gap clean every time but one and did not take the easy line once. The highlight was the fall West release where I felt really good and began to consider running the Dryway again.

At the West, I also traded in my Vision 44 for a larger boat (at a profit!) because I felt that the Vision was making harder water too difficult for me. The new boat is a used liquidlogic CR 125, which is 7" longer and much beefier than the Vision and still theoretically able to perform playboating maneuvers, which the Vision was built for (not that I could do any of them).

The last run of the 2007 season was my first run of the Lower Ash in the southwest corner of New Hampshire. Now, the west-flowing tributaries of the Connecticut River between the confluence of the West in Brattleboro, VT and the MA/CT border, namely the Ashuelot, Millers and Quaboag, do not exactly have the best reputations regarding water quality. I found the Ash to be quite opaque and dark and it just didn't feel right on your skin (I know this because I rolled once; no swims). The good news is it did not smell. As far as the whitewater was concerned, there were plenty of good rapids. It was running at a medium level, so there were no class IV's, but some very nice III's. It was a great way to cure my now yearly November syndrome, which characterized by a burning desire to get one more run in before there is ice in the rivers.

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.

Fife Brook

It was time for another Fife Brook run this past weekend, the main objective being to run the Gap clean in my boat.

I got there late because of a slow start and because I stopped en route because I was sleepy. I got there 20 minutes late, but Bryan, the trip leader, was 20 minutes late. As a result, we had a really late start and had to hurry so as not to run out of water.

At Hangover Helper, I ran the boof into the midriver eddy at the bottom of the drop near the big river left eddy. I practiced my new ferrying technique and didn't flip on any.

I got my best rides of the year at the first playspot, using techniques I learned at the course to catch the microeddy and then the wave.

I missed the big catch-on-the-fly wave at the start of Freight Train. We didn't spend much time under the bridge, opting for lunch at a less rocky place near the Bridge to Nowhere. I did do a couple good squirts here and got some more good surfing on the small waves below the bridge.

After lunch, we went through the rock garden fast, which made me happy, and we didn't even stop at Miami Beach. Before I knew it, we were at the Gap. Bryan, Tony and I ran the Gap. Bryan took a very complicated, difficult and technical route, and I convinced Tony to run the left side with me, boofing into the first eddy.

I got through with no trouble, but blew a ferry in the wave train below the Gap, resulting in a swim. I was unhappy about this, so I decided to continue down to the picnic area to practice some rolls in the flatwater. I hit the first two but then I swam again. I don't know what happened to my roll at the end of the day. I hope I was just tired from rushing down Fife Brook. I might do some extra flatwater practice if I get a chance.

Intermediate Course Day 2--Dead @ 1300 cfs

I had a difficult time falling asleep on Friday night on account of some snoring in one of the neighboring tents, so the first thing I did Saturday morning was drive up to Webb's General Store to buy some Red Bull. After two and a nap on the commercial shuttle, I was ready for 17 miles of wilderness paddling on the Dead River at the low, technical release of 1300 cfs.

The first rapid was not technical at all. The river narrowed to about 75 feet, with a rock wall on river right. A short drop led into a wave train and there were eddies on both sides--a perfect place for more ferrying practice. We did a lot of ferries and there was a bit of a jet ferry wave too. I flipped a few times and swam twice, hopefully because the Red Bulls hadn't kicked in yet and I was still tired.

We finally headed on down through a fairly quiet, but moving section. We went through a couple of easy class II's before pulling off for lunch. At lunch, we were reminded that the rapids would get progressively harder the rest of the way down, starting soon.

Elephant Rock was the first of the major rapids. There was a choice of running the middle, where there were a bunch of waves or "the slot" a narrow chute on river right between the shore and a big pourover. I was going to run the slot, but I decided the big waves would be too fun to pass up. When I eddied out behind the pourover, and watched the others go through the slot, I regretted my decision. It looked like a really fun chute with good gradient and no major consequences.

Pretty soon we approached Mile-Long Rapid, which seemed much shorter than it was. There were lots of waves, rocks, pourovers and holes. I was able to get around most of the things that needed to be avoided by catching eddies and looking for hazards. At one point, I flipped over right before a big rock though. I rolled up quick and saw the rock right in front of my face, so I grabbed it before I hit it and pulled myself up and pushed around it. I got partially stuck on two rocks a short while later but again was able to push myself free with my hands.

We eddied out on river left before the final series of significant rapids, Upper and Lower Poplar Hill Falls. I have no idea why it's called a falls; it's just a steep rapid, but nothing close to a waterfall. Andy told us we were on our own for finding a route down, meaning we wouldn't have to follow him if we didn't want to. It looked really steep, so I decided to follow him, but I missed an eddy he caught right away, so I was on my own. I moved from river left to river right to run a fairly big ledge. What looked to me like a soft spot in the ledge was actually about a ten inch drop onto a flat rock with very little water going over it. I ran this spot and ended up stopped on this rock, which was very surprising and strange. How do you stop in the middle of a rapid without catching an eddy? I waved to the others going passed me and laughed. I wiggled off the rock and went on down. Lower Poplar was awesome, with fast water, big waves and holes, and rocks and pourovers to eddy out behind. Andy caught up to me at the bottom and said he liked the way I had run the whole thing.

This was the end of the significant whitewater. The rest of the way was class I, maybe II- in a couple spots. I wanted to relax, and give my crunched feet a chance to be free, so I pulled my skirt and put my knees above the cockpit. I knew that without a skirt, I was committed to swimming if I flipped, but I did not think I would since the water was so easy. What I failed to take into account was the amount of water that would get into the boat. Eventually, enough water got in that the bow was really diving and the whole boat was getting spun and pulled under whenever I hit one of the small waves. After a bunch of close calls, I finally flipped over and swam. I was content to swim all the way to the takeout, which was in sight about half a mile down, but I was convinced it would be safer to go to shore and get back in the boat. I tediously got it emptied on the rocks, got back in and paddled to the takeout with Sohan, who had nicely waited for me.

So, after 8 hours on the river, the course was over. (There were far too many rapids for me to remember and describe, so I have only included the major ones here). Sohan and I were the only ones not staying over, so we made a quick getaway so as not to get home too late. We left the campground at 9:10 and got home about 1:45, which was pretty good.

I became a much better ferryer and scouter as a result of this course. I feel I can run harder rapids now by finding easier routes. The last few rapids on the Dead were really great and it is my favorite river so far.