The Vermont Paddlers Club

This is the beginning of a series of trip reports from a long weekend of Boating around VT,

With flows less than optimal this spring I have had to be somewhat creative to find places to get decent runs in. A crew of friends from PA regularly come up this time of year to sample VT's creeking scene. Last year was a no brainer...this year, well you know the story.

So we put on the Clarendon Gorge under the AT bridge and bounced down through the upper gorge to no fanfare. The drops were clean and the uper gorge was drenched in mid-day sun. Everything was still surprisingly fluid in the gorge.

The Mill drop was reduced to an easy IV at this level as the lead in was a simple staircase and the hole at the bottom of the drop was non-retentive. It was a good exercise in propper posture in your boat. If you were leaning back you would stern squirt like a champ, if you sat up you skipped across the hole no problem.

The lower came up quick enough after some low flat water scraping and everyone got out to look at the first two drops (1-the unrunable one and 2-Grudle Puncher). After much deliberation, it was decided that we would all either seal launch into the gorge from below these drops or throw our boats in and then jump in after them. It was a hodge-podge of entrys. All drops in the lower gorge went fairly fluid and you could poke at them from any way you saw fit at the level the river was at. Retentive holes were nonexistant.

The run ended much too quickly through the bottom gorge but it was time to move on to the next creek of choice.

A good day to be in the Clarendon Gorges and NOT the flat water sections between the two gorges (if you know what I mean).......