The Vermont Paddlers Club

The Mettawee below Granville NY was our backup for Joe's Brook, which based on GMP's dispatch report was going to be too low to be any fun. Like Joe's, the Mettawee provides advance boaters with a lot of excitement with a paltry 275 cfs.

We put in on a class I reach, 2 or 3 miles upstream of the first big drop on this warm and sunny morning. This gave us time to notice and appreciate what a lovely unspoiled valley the river inhabits. The first short class V drop is in Truthville, NY - more like "moment-of-truth-ville" if you ask me! Three of us managed to cleanly glance right off the bottom boof rock (the suggested route), two carried, and one finished on center-left (amazingly) unscathed.

Flatwater stretches and a few class II-III ledges separate the 3 remaining IV-V drops. The first and easiest of these is reminiscent of the Horseshoe Falls on Vermont's Mad River. The horizon line above the second so-called "Triple Drop" and the powerful recirculating hole at the end on river right had Eric carrying his canoe without ado (left bank). All four kayakers maintained a perfect line through Triple Drop, nailing this impressive three-ledge combination. But my OC-1 filled with water below ledge #2 and I flipped over halfway down ledge #3, ripping out my thigh strap anchor in the process. My canoe recirculated carelessly in that nasty hole for quite some time, while I clung desperately to the sheer rock wall a few feet away. The upstream current feeding the hungry hole was so strong that I would never have managed to swim downstream and out of my predicament were it not for Eric and his throw bag expertise. THANK YOU, ERIC!

Embarrassingly, our group missed altogether the final high class V falls/slide, as none of us had ever run the Mettawee before and I somehow managed to mistake a small parking area just upstream of it for the official take-out. Simon and photographer Patrick Rogers took some great digital pictures this day, which are featured in the VPC website slideshow.