The Vermont Paddlers Club

Three boaters signed up for the Poultney trip, so you can imagine the surprise when I saw 6 boats at the Welcome Center. Two more boaters then showed up. It turns out that Poultney was just very popular that Sunday. Three women (E.J., Sarah, and Becky) were running the Poultney independent of the VPC trip. We did end up running the river with them in various sections. Adam and Brian also had decided to run the Poultney and joined the VPC contingent. Though it rained fairly steady for the better part of the trip the water stayed at a low, but boatable, 350 cfs (or so). We scouted the first, second, and last rapids. There was some swimming but not too much. The last rapid was fairly straight-forward at this low water level, as long as you avoided the mess in the middle. Everyone who ran it did so river right (to some degree) without issue. It looked more intimidating then it was (but isn't that always the case when everyone styles it?). We were off the river by 2:00 pm. So three of us went on to do a fast run down the lower New Haven.