The Vermont Paddlers Club

Another usual suspect for an afterwork run...

The Gihon holds water better than most creeks in the state, because of the size of its watershed extending all the way up into Belvidere and Eden.  It also has a large wetland complex that releases flow slowly.  We had plenty of rain lately and a few of us were game to make the drive north.

Having Ingram with us is a treat, because I think he may have close to as many runs as Dave or Scott G on this river.  He knows all of the fun cooky little lines and such to have a great go.

Chan was again new to the run and lobbing a newbie off of the first drop, the 35 foot dam face is always a fun.  I think he thought it fun too.  Of note - the Woodsides, the folks that own the dam are usually less than ok with people running the dam, especially Mrs Woodside.  On this day they were sitting at their kitchen table eating dinner and watched us fire up the drop.  I actually think I saw Mr. Woodside give us fist-pump!

With more high quality rapids in the upper gorge than I can remember or that have been named, we were all grins.  Of the two that are named, Balls to the Wall, is especially fun and its a left to right move to get on the green water tongue. and not fall off into the crack.  A few more quality boofs and then Mustang - a great class V drop that is very runable but also sports some really serious consequences.  The entire group opted to portage and fire off the seal launch.

Flat water was next for a good stretch to the lower Gihon that has all of its quality rapids named starting with Bed-Head.  Everyone ran it cleanly and into Coliseum which went cleanly into Spinach (Carpet Factory) which we all ran cleanly on a suggestion from Chris Ingram to run the initial drop on the left....FUN!

Next drop was Pin Cushion that has a fantastic boof off of the large boil or what looks luke a pin cushion.  Then was the Power House.  A nice long and fast rapid.  Stay out of the notch is the best advice!  Sunshine has a great line far left that Chris also showed us and then we bopped on down to the drop in town that is a bunch of fun too...

Beers in the rain at the take out were well earned....  After work runs are the best!