The Vermont Paddlers Club

With spring finally starting to emerge from the snow drifts, Anders and I made a plan for some Friday afternoon paddling. With the demands of law school, Ander's paddling is basically limited to the White River watershed on most days, so we chose two rarely run runs - the West Branch of the Tweed and Locust Creek. Mike McDonnell had given me beta and Anders was eager for some obscure boat bashing paddling. We drove to Pittsburg, and left a car at the bridge over the West Branch of the Tweed - the White River Partnership and FEMA had conveniently purchased and removed a house here, and its a great public access point now. The water level looked great! We drove east until the road ended at a snowmobile trail, and then proceeded to drive a little further, Anders testing his 4x4 truck capabilities on the snow covered road. Eventually we stopped and walking our boats through the woods, following  the sound of the river. Behold, there is was! For good measure we hiked upstream, putting in above a snowmobile bridge. The river here is like a mini Patterson - clear, bouldery water, ledgy rock walls, fun little drops. Good stuff. After the obligatory sneak around a strainer we carried on for ~5 miles? There are several distinct drops in this section, which is great for a micro, including a set of ledges right above and below a bridge. What a fun river!

Next stop, Locust Creek, which is visible on Rt 107 between Bethel and Stockbridge near Rt 12. We parked at the gas station to scout the drop below the bridge. Left side looked chocked with wood, but right side was clear, first time in a couple years. Leaving a car here we proceeded to drive west toward Barnard. Gradually the river became smaller and smaller, so before we ran out of water we stopped at a side bridge and set off downstream. The river here was mostly quickwater with occasional Class II drops, made more challenging by a badly leaking boat on my end. Soon we came to a more intense rapid with a horizon line beneath a side bridge, and pulled over to scout. The river here descended a jumble of boulders and through a narrow slot - probably only 5' wide. Class IV+ with pinning potential? We elected to portage and seal launched into the mini gorge. Carrying on to Rt 107, we descended the final drop, which was bigger and more fun then it looked from above. Anders rolled twice here, more times then his entire Grand Canyon trip the week prior. We took out by an old road above the confluence and walked back to the gas station, happy to have explored two, close to home, not so micro creeks!

I put an early April Mascoma River trip on the VPC spring schedule hoping for a 70 degree day. Instead we got barely more than half that, topping out at just 40 degrees. The sun shone brightly all day, which helped a great deal, and the wet snow that had fallen overnight clung to the trees prettily during our first run. The rail trail that parallels the river and crosses it several times was covered with enough snow that a x-c ski shuttle would have been possible, though we weren't prepared for that. The Mascoma here is maybe 25 feet wide on average - free of river-wide strainers (today). There were 4 kayakers for each of our 2 runs (Chris F., John, Sarah, and Tony in the AM, with Chris W. subbing in for Sarah in the PM). The state of NH funds the real-time river gauge (de-funded years ago by the USGS) which looked plenty fluid online throughout the week. But then mysteriously Saturday morning the dam operator lowered the flow from 700+ CFS to approximately 475 CFS - still fluid but rather tame from start to finish. The paddle through the woods is attractive and we enjoyed the many read-and-run II-III rapids, the most technical of which is the final one - Excelsior. Be sure to scout the low head dam (a mandatory portage) from the take-out, whether you choose to park on river right in the posted "lot" near the rail-trail bridge or on river left in the swimming pool parking lot a couple hundred yards downstream. Dartmouth holds a slalom race on this stretch of the Mascoma each April - the same weekend as the Wells River Rumble.

Heading back from field work in Montpelier on Wednesday, I noticed that all the little creeks in the Mad River Valley were starting to fill up.  I made a slight detour to check Patterson, finding it at a pretty much perfect level… with no one to paddle with of course. Sort of the story of spring 2018… not really much of anyone out boating, despite the extended, late, healthy snowmelt season we enjoyed. Fortunately, a few emails later Chandler was heading over.

With one to two inches of water running over the gauge rock this run is amazing!  Things are not too big but everything is nice and fluid… a true perfect medium. We did two efficient laps on this wonderful creek, stopping to check for wood in a few places.  Things are actually in good shape wood-wise, though there is some wood hanging over the runout of the diagonal holes that looks like it will fall in pretty soon and make a nasty log jam.  Other than that there is just a lot of green moss, a few waterfalls dropping into the river and some really nice class III-IV rapids… like there’s always been.

On Thursday Robyn wanted to head over, and brought Catherine, Tom and Anders as well.  The level was a little bit lower but well within the nice medium range. We did two more really nice laps.  An added plus this time was how clear the water was. It’s hard to convey just how good this run is at a nice level… it’s active, interesting paddling but really forgiving… you’d be hard pressed to find an undercut, sieve, pothole or bad pin spot on the run.

I paddled elsewhere on Friday and Saturday, but folks were interested in heading back Sunday morning.  We had myself, Tanner, Anders and… Dave! It had been a few years since I’d boated with Dave, and in fact it was Dave who had shown me this run 8 years ago.  The level was a fluid low, just spilling over the middle of the gauge rock. We did two more laps on this surprisingly chilly day.

After that I went to take a quick look at Thatcher Brook down in Hancock.  It is a very interesting looking run.

So that is how to enjoy snowmelt, and it’s also nice to see folks actually out paddling after work!

In the winter of 2018, after spending most of my adult life living north of 89, I moved to Middlebury.  This move placed me in striking distance of a whole new cache of creeks and streams many of which I had never paddled.  On the afternoon of Monday April 30th, after missing the peak runoff event of the past week (visiting family in NC) I took the opportunity to explore one I had been wanting to check out for a while - the North Branch of the Cold.  

The North Branch is a small stream tucked to the southeast of Rutland in a surprisingly remote valley.  Its waters originate on the northwest aspect of Killington and travel south before meeting the main branch of the Cold just below the Brown Covered Bridge. 

The put-in I chose was where Notch Road crosses the river just below Mclaughlin Falls - a potentially runnable 2-stage falls dropping perhaps 30 feet in total.  As I was travelling alone it was something I didn't inspect closely.  From the pool at the base of the falls it is a little over three and a half miles to the main branch of the cold with an elevation loss of 650 feet.  The first mile drops 200 feet and contains fun constricted boulder and bedrock rapids.  Wood was an issue in some, but otherwise it was surprisingly decent boating.  Unfortunately the quality boating ends and for the next 2 miles the creek was shallow, gravely and wood infested, the sort of tiring and boat abusing stuff that deters one from returning.  Redemption is found in the last six tenths of a mile after Mendon brook enters on the left, adding flow.  Below here the creek drops 170ft over small and continuous boulder rapids, reminiscent of the Big Branch only tighter and slightly less steep.  Of the run I found this to be the most enjoyable and a great way to dull the memory of the previous 45 minutes in the flat section. 

While the boating on the North Branch had its highlights, as an overall run it is not something I would likely recommend.  That being said the valley has a very remote feel and contains a beautiful birch and maple forest.  Something about it reminded me strongly of the White Mountains.

At this point you are deposited into Cold River proper.  I chose to hike up from the confluence another 3/4 of a mile to add a bit more to the afternoon.  From here down to the Cold River Road bridge it was an incredibly fun III+ romp.  There was one dangerous river wide pine about 1/2 mile above the covered bridge directly after the river makes a nearly 90 degree turn to the left.

This section felt like a smaller E. Branch of the Pemi both in character of rapids and scenery.  The 3 miles contains continuous wave trains, small holes and a few boulder strewn rapids to maneuver through.  With the flow on the low end of the spectrum it was low stress - aside from worrying about wood.  If you were to find this with a lot of water it would be a fantastic run, but also more serious due to its continuous nature and the likely addition of a few sizable holes.

At the take out bridge I was worn out.  6½ miles of boating, plus a good amount of time with the boat on my shoulder had drained me.  Unfortunately the real fun was just starting with a nearly 8 mile bike shuttle up some seriously steep back roads still to be done.  The shuttle back to the top is rather indirect, requiring you to travel north into Rutland before back-tracking south and up Notch Road where there are a couple of gut-busting hills to impede progress.  I'm not too proud to admit I was forced to dismount for a time.

Finally arriving at the car, out of water, stamina and daylight, was a relief.  In total the adventure took about 4 hours start to finish.

Was I glad to have done it?  Definitely.  I can't think of a better way to spend my free time than exploring a secluded river valley tucked into the Green Mountains.  Will I be back to the North Branch?  Definitely, except next time will be with a fishing pole and a backpack with beer.

As for the Cold proper, as has been stated before, it is an underrated, often passed over run that I would argue ranks as one of the best class III runs Vermont has to offer.  At higher levels it would sure to please those looking for more challenge and serves as a great backup to when the Big Branch is too high.

So the next time the water is up down south, make sure to give yourself time to get a run in on the Cold.

Ten of us gathered on a warm (80 degrees) spring day.  This was the "Team Edition" trip.  We had the following "teams":

Team Centrifuge: JimF & Max  (they were fun to watch flopping all over the place)

J-Team: JimP & John

Eddy Hop Team: Hugh & Steve

Team Chris: ChrisW & ChrisM

Father / Daughter Team: Paul & Rita

And we will not make mention of any swim team members...

Since it was so sunny and warm we took our time getting through the first few rapids.  Yes, there is still wood in the S-Turn rapid but we all missed it.  We burned so much daylight by the time we hit the Route 100 bridge we needed to hustle a bit to get to the take out by sunset.  We made it with a few minutes of daylight left.  By the time we took out the temps were still in the mid 60's!

Everyone has a great time.  Why can't all days of paddling in Vermont be 80 degrees with enough juice to get us downriver?!?

jimp

Yes, that’s right, the East Branch of the Pemigewasset.  Where all the wealthy, famous and fashionable New England paddlers go.  Or at least they should, but didn’t. I got a couple miserable excuses: “Too low” (it was holding around 700), “The Saranac is in” (the Saranac isn’t 10 miles of impeccable class III-IV) and so on.  I guess this river, once one of the most trendy and fashionable paddling destinations in the northeast just doesn’t stack up to not paddling at all, even on beautiful late spring days.

Actually, doing this run alone was sort of nice.  I didn’t have to work on convincing anyone to do the hike into the upper section (because there was no anyone), and I didn’t have to convince anyone else to hike past the normal upper put-in and go even farther upstream - one of my goals for the day.  I ended up going about 2.5 miles past Franconia Brook (or over 5 miles above the roadside put in) before I decided that I needed to leave time to actually paddle. My hiking was rewarded with a couple of the best solid class IV boulder gardens in the whole Pemi watershed. This was a nice surprise, in addition to the miles of great, continuous class III, pristine water quality and wilderness scenery.  I also ran into Greg and Sawyer Hanlon, who were in packrafts and a little surprised to see another boater up there.

Most of the run is in great shape, with a lot of the messy cobble piles left by Hurricane Irene mostly eroded away.  The floods last fall cut an entirely new channel in one place, leaving a solid quarter-mile of the old riverbed almost completely dry.

Loon Mountain Rapid also changed a ton—it’s unrecognizable compared to the past-Irene version, and is a vast improvement over the shitty, rip-rapped sluice that the ski area left when they replaced the bridge.  The new version is a steep, clean drop over and around huge granite boulders well upstream of the bridge. There were two older open boaters here who absolutely crushed the bottom hole in their gigantic boats

On a side note, if you’re in the Whites when things are running, check out the Zealand River—it’s one of the nicest-looking creeks I’ve seen.  It probably runs when the Sawyer runs.

The Saranac had been running high for over a week, but by the week of May 6 showed promise of coming down to a sensible level, with little rain expected for the next several days. I posted about a possible trip, and Charlie expressed interest. By Thursday Jeremy had emailed me about the trip. Early on Friday I posted a plan to meet on Sunday morning, and Chris Frost signed on.

By that time the gauge was down to 5.5 - 5.6 feet, a nice medium level. I hoped it would hold into the weekend, and it did (at 5.25 feet). Saturday was sunny but chilly, but Sunday looked ideal, with a forecast high of 70 F or above.

As usual, we carpooled to the Grand Isle Ferry from the Milton Park and Ride (I-89 Exit 17) and met at the Maplefields convenience store on Route 3 in Redford shortly before 1:00 pm. After checking out the large rapid above and under Ore Bed Road just upstream from the store, we decided to change at the usual takeout (2.1 miles farther upstream) where Silver Lake Road meets Route 3 (in Clayburg). From there the shuttle up to the put-in is about 4.2 miles. (On the river, the distance is about 5.5 miles.)

By the time we started down the 200 yard put-in trail the weather felt like summer, and the sky was a gorgeous clear blue. Jeremy and Charlie were new to the run, and I was glad to see them experiencing the river with such beautiful weather and at a solid medium flow. We paddled uneventfully for the next 45 minutes or more down to Tefft Pond Falls, taking in the wild surroundings on the edge of Adirondack Park. The initial rapid right after the put-in is a nice extended warmup, which includes class 3 features at higher flows. After that is an extended meandering stretch of flat water through a wetland.

It ends abruptly at Tefft Pond Falls (Class IV-IV+), where we stopped to portage and scout the falls. I had seen it run on a couple of occasions by that time (by Max Redman and Noel Bailey) and knew of another run by Jamie Dolan. (Undoubtedly there have been many others by solid New York paddlers in years past.) All these were at lower flows (4.7 to 4.9 feet). As indicated, we elected to portage, but a run was certainly not out of the question. At 6 feet and above the drop is arguably Class V, with wood almost always a complicating factor.

The next rapid brought us to the top of the big Class III-IV cascade where mishaps usually occur. Jeremy and Charlie took the meaty line against the large central island, while Chris Frost and I took a couple of more conservative lines to river-left. Chris went right against the left bank, which includes a tricky bend and a couple of holes that can cause problems. He handled it without incident, and we met up in the large pool below. After surveying what came next, Chris took off and worked left, with me following farther to the right.

I focused on maneuvering through the staggered ledge holes in this section, and lost track of what Chris was doing. At the bottom of the rapid I looked around, and saw that Jeremy was giving chase to a boat. It quickly became evident that Chris was swimming. He self-rescued fairly readily on river-left, and corralling his boat became the main problem.

We ended up in front of the one house that fronts on the river below Tefft Pond Falls, where some confusion ensued. I pulled into an eddy and threw my paddle on shore, capsized my boat while trying to get out of it, and lost my water bottle in the process. At that moment I saw Jeremy scrambling to exit his boat, get on shore, and start running after something. I thought at first it was my paddle, but it turned out to be his; mine stayed where I threw it. Somehow in the midst of all this we did indeed rescue Chris Frost's boat, and were able to regroup and continue on down the river.

At the time I was worried that the owner(s) of the house might be home, and would strenuously object to our use of their riverfront, but nobody appeared. I've heard stories about unfriendly landowners along this stretch of the Saranac. Fortunately it is generally easy to stay either on the water or out of sight, or both.

After that episode we were able to relax and enjoy the continuous 2+ miles of rapids that follow, including the one remaining substantial drop on the run, where the river splits around an island. Plenty of easy whitewater follows, with some nice surfing opportunities, especially on river-left.

Running the Saranac can make for a long day, but the run to the upper takeout only took us about 2 hours. At 5.75 feet or above many may consider it worth using the lower takeout and running the rapid above Ore Bed Road, although this entails paddling about 1.5 miles of shallow quickwater (mostly Class I) to get there.

During a reasonably wet spring the Saranac stands a good chance of having good flow well into May. There are few things better than experiencing the wilderness feel of this run with a clear sky, warm air, and cool but not cold water. I continue to highly recommend it. (By the way, the Saranac is part of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail.)

For the first time in a few years I actually had memorial day weekend clear to paddle, but didn’t really make any plans.  I sorta wanted a big Quebec weekend or something that like, but hadn’t the time to get a plan together. Still, a warm weekend on the Moose in New York seemed like an easy, fun and logistically simple option and as it turned out Tom was on board as well.  I have to admit that while the Moose is not the most exotic or sought-after run, it’s still a pretty good deal… you can camp by the river, run fun, mostly-friendly class IV/V and the pool-drop nature of the run makes it a great social river, especially with the level in the low- to mid-3’s.

On Saturday we had a large but competent group and had a routine run down to Agers.  Some folks went for the hard lines, some didn’t, but everyone was a having a fun, relaxing day.

Things took a decided turn at Sure-Form, when one member of our group, Molly, flipped at the top and washed out the bottom semi-conscious and unable to exit her boat.  I didn’t quite realize what had happened, but fortunately Justin and Jeff picked up on the problem faster than I did and 4 or 5 of us managed to get her out of the current and somewhat stable on a rock, while a few others corralled gear and Greg took off to call 911.  The next big stroke of luck came when a friend of ours, Olivia, who is an ER doc came down with the group behind us, and with her direction we moved Molly to a better position where she regained full consciousness and a little bit of feeling in her extremities. Once the Lyons Falls Fire Department arrived, 20+ firefighters and paddlers carried Molly across the runout of Sure-Form to the back of a pickup truck and thence to an ambulance.

This was a sobering event for a rapid that, while notorious for bloodying knuckles and smashing elbows has never really been viewed as truly hazardous.  To some degree, I think many of us have become indifferent to the shallow-but-not-shallow-enough nature of so many rivers in the northeast and the significant, but unobvious hazard that produces.

As a side note, the ultimate diagnosis was 2 or 3 broken vertebrae, a painstaking but nearly complete recovery and what everyone hopes will ultimately be a strong return to paddling.

Sunday went a bit better, with no real issues.  It was warm enough to paddle in a t-shirt. The best part of the day was when the entire group ran the alpine line at crystal.  In fact, sitting at the bottom watching 10 friends fire it off cleanly was one of the best parts of the season.

Paddling is always about taking the good with the bad and dealing with what the river throws at you.  Be well, be wise, beware, because.

A summer whitewater outing in these parts requires a dam release or a rainstorm. And rain it did. But the Monday afternoon—and overnight—intermittent heavy thunderstorms were clearly fast-moving and isolated, so we also needed a Chris Weed to read the tea leaves and ferret out a hasty Tuesday paddling plan. Early Tuesday morning the VPC message board started lighting up. By late Tuesday morning the sun had made a return. And about the time we put-on in Westford to run the Browns—1:00 pm—the Lamoille R. at East Georgia started falling from it's peak flow (1900 cfs).

I knew from my own scientific analysis here in Williston ("thousand one, - thousand two, ...") that several potent cells had passed 10 miles or so to our north—over the Browns headwaters. Those fast-moving thunderstorms - the kind that shake your whole house when the thunder hits—were impressive. God I love summer!

I debated between canoeing and kayaking, and I chose the kayak mainly because it is a bit easier to carry and load on the car—and because it was easier to extricate from all the s#@* cluttering up our garage.

So Chris and I took my 7-week-old hip for its maiden voyage in a kayak, and it was great! The Browns corridor below Westford is surprisingly remote and lovely, home to the 2 deer we saw on the riverbank and their compadres, and at least the one coyote we saw SWIMMING across the river! And of course we had the swollen, musty-smelling river thing going on. It's the "Browns", after all!

There is a new river-wide strainer in the first 1/4 mile below the put-in on Rt. 128 in Westford, but other than that all the lines were clean, and neither of us had any difficulty. My hip actually felt really great while boating, and I even went for a mountain bike ride later that afternoon. God I love healing!

It would have been fun to have a larger group on the river, but it was Tuesday after all, and with storms like these you've got to strike while the iron is hot. I think the Browns was cresting in Westford just about the time we put on (2" or so below the concrete footing at the bridge across from the put-in). It was down to 4" or so below the footing as we headed for home around 3:30.

A final note on wood

As already indicated, 40-50 yards above the rapid leading in to the broken dam (the second drop after the put-in) there is a freshly fallen tree spanning the width of the river. (It apparently went down during one of the thunderstorms on Monday, 6/18.) It has plenty of branches and foliage, so it's a bad strainer. It's danger is mitigated by the slow-moving flow at that point (at yesterday's medium level) and the fact that one can sneak past it against the bank on far river right. However, another high water event could move it downstream into the lead-in rapid or the broken dam itself, so it would be good to cut this tree at the earliest opportunity.

There is also some new wood in other locations farther downstream, but nothing that represents a real hazard (for now). However, note that the far river-right sneak route at the river-wide ledge (third major drop) is obstructed by a log at its entrance. That will be an issue if one attempts to use that route during a high water run, when the hole main ledge drop looks risky to punch. (That would be at a level approaching flood stage.)

Lots of water around this fall.  I awoke bright and early Friday morning thinking about the New Haven, but with Ranch Brook well over 100 and heading straight up it seemed there might be better opportunities.  I knew a few folks would be over in the Adirondacks, so headed over to Keene Valley, past a fluffy-looking North Fork Boquet and many waterfalls around Chapel Pond to John’s Brook.  There I found two New York Justins and a Vermont Jordan and a John’s Brook that was at the very high end of runnable.

An easy choice was made to head back to the NoFoBo.  This wasn’t my first time on it, but the general quality of the run still surprised me.  With a nice mix of big boulder gardens, constricted bedrock and sloshy mini-gorges, all connected by juicy class III, it is varied, fun and not too gnarly, at least at a good medium level.  We took out at Andy’s hole, which looked deadlier than anything we wanted to deal with at that time.

After the NoFoBo we headed back to John’s Brook, which had dropped into a juicy runnable range.  We used the lower put-in, about a 15 minute walk up from the trailhead. The first quarter-mile had a lot of walking (partly because there were terminal log jams every 200 feet and partly because overall, there was a lot of water and a lot of gradient and it all seemed kind of scary).  After the fourth log jam we were able to stay in our boats and actually got to enjoy some of the awesome boulder gardens the lower half of John’s Brook is known for, though we carried the two biggest ones. We took out a little ways down the Ausable. Jordan hit the road fast since he had to be in Burlington in an hour (it was Kristen’s birthday and yes, Jordan had the day off and he spent it all paddling) while Justin and I headed towards Vermont for what we were sure would be a great weekend of boating.  

On a side note, apparently if it’s your wife’s birthday and you’re planning on going boating, you can just let Justin know and he’ll notify the appropriate parties.  I don’t know how much he charges for this service but I hope it’s a lot.