The Vermont Paddlers Club

If anyone looks back at the Message Board for May 6, you can see it was silly busy and a Mainer was the instigator. We all wanted to get on the river though and boat. All the flow was north of the I-89 corridor, but Mike had a hunch that Ridley would be running with his correlation to Ranch Brook in Stowe. He was right!

We all arrived at the take out by 5:15 and suited up. Those guys had all been down this river multiple times pre and post Irene. I had only seen pictures and driven up Camel's Hump Road a few times to hike or ski up there. Never really seen any water in the river bed. There was today and I could feel my sphincter starting to tighten...never mind my stomach up in my throat! The guys (Mike, Clay and Scott) were pretty cavalier about the run and were joking around at the put in. Scot, Clay and I put in a little up river from Mike and worked our way down into the first succession of drops. Very quickly I found that this was the type of boating I luv. Tight steep and shallow, My trusty Huka was built for this stuff and I'm an ELF (cracking myself up right now). Anyways, once on the river the guys did a good job of giving me beta on the rapids and drops without over doing it. We all were running clean lines and working our way down to Bathtub. I eyed it and carried down to the bottom and set safety and took video. Mike styled it, Scott hopped in and did the same and then Clay smoothed the lines out after seeing the other guys.... All three of them cleaned the Bathtub and made me second guess my decision to walk it. Maybe next time.

From the Tub we worked down to Backyard and Video. Mike and Scott ran Backyard and then took out above the crux. It was pretty messy and may have had wood??? We all put into the gorge and ran it. OH MY GOODNESS. What an amazing piece of whitewater! That is one unreal stretch of beautiful river! After the gorge was a couple more rapids and then out.

Now that is how you end a Monday. I can now tolerate work with that run in my back pocket on a Monday Evening!

For the record - Boating with these three guys is a pleasure... They are talented and gracious with lesser boaters on the river. If you haven't had the pleasure to boat with Scott Clay or Mike... Do so, you'll be a better boater for it.