The Vermont Paddlers Club

Sunny Skies and clear clean water was on the agenda for our trip trip to NH.  With less than an alpine start, we met at the Montpelier Park and Ride to saunter to Barre where we snagged Henry and the 6 of us from VT headed over to NH to meet up with Brandon and Jamie at the put in for the SB Baker.  The level was at a flowy medium. 

All of us were happy to be on water and floating down the river.  Water temps reminded you that we were really still barely into spring.  All rapids went cleanly down to the entrance to the old mill.  There was a log that was easily moved.  At that point we all ran lines through to the last drop of varying degrees of cleanliness.  Below the Mill Drop we bopped on down to the confluence with Rocky Branch and Cannibal Falls.  No one nutted up to fire Cannibal on this trip, but it was definitely primed and ready to go. 

From Cannibal Falls on down, the group spread out and everyone picked apart the rapids and drops until we hit the last big slide, which everyone ran far right and cleanly.......  If you haven't had a chance to run the SB Baker and you are a budding creeker looking for a mix of bedrock and boulder rapids, this is a fun class 3/4 run with lots of action.

Next we headed to Pond Brook for a fun run on a quality bedrock run with fun slides and a whopper of a boof at the end!  Mega Slide served up a few tense moments but the folks that ran it ran it with their own personal panache....what a quality rapid.  What a great run and everyone was ear to ear smiles at the bottom....  Other than paddling past the take out (MAINER) I would say I like Pond a little more than SB Baker just because of the style of rapids and continuous manner with which it drops downward to the Baker. 

After the run we shared brews, stories and caught up with another group of boaters that included Tom and Becca driving over from Maine to sample the goods. 

Over all a great day of early season boating for all of us present.....