The Vermont Paddlers Club

The west river!! A true classic run of the Northeast.

Standing at the top of the Dam looking down at the first rapid is amazing, watching the snake of boats, rafts and etc (meaning other things people decided to take down the river i.e lilo (did anyone else see that)). The first rapid looked huge and at first I was a little intimidated. I was grateful Jim had run it before and didn't mind showing us the lines and playspots.

Simon delighted us all the way down with wave wheels, cartwheels and whatever wheels. He impressed us even more when he did the same on the second run with hand paddles. In one eddy a paddler commented "There must be a fault with that guys boat if he can do that with hand paddles" after watching Simon pull off some flat water cartwheels.

Todd, Dan and Jim made use of Jim's knowledge of play spots and surfed numerous waves and holes. Boof rock was avoided by most of the group, but we had two star boofers Simon and Todd.(we won't mention the one swim here).

Dumplings seemed to be over hyped in the book and Jim showed us through with a relatively easy line, while Simon opted for the slot chute. On the second run Jim and Todd opted for a harder route on the right side. I opted for the same route and obviously became a little lapse as I thought I made the line only to sidle into the hole and slam into the rock, I didn't want to go over so used my paddled as a support on the rock and slid around it to make a nice recovery.

I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the West river, although myself and Simon couldn't convince the rest of the group to paddle a third run on just the lower section.

On the lower section we were joined by Ray Ingram, demoing a new espirit canoe, I hand paddled and Simon complained how flat it was. (he was warned it was only grade 2).

We took the right channel which proved to be continuous but rocky and very low..whoops a few scraps added to the demo canoe. A huge smile spread across our faces when we hit the last rapid before the take out...not because the run was over, but because we had just come across, probably the best play spot on the whole of the West river. It made Simon happy!! I took out and ran it a couple of times with the hand paddles. It had a couple of nice holes to surf in, both Simon and Ray had a happy time in there.

We eventually took off around 5ish...ready for the long drive back to Burlington.