The Vermont Paddlers Club

A few years back I had the chance to paddle the upper part of this creek. While a good time, particularly the scenery, it was fairly tame with a fair share of portaging over strainers.  We stopped that evening when night fell and had a bit of a hike back to the cars.  Today’s run would be a bit different but some of the same. Will said he had run this section tons while in college and had a fairly good idea of the lines (even after college parties and 10 or so years). Turns out, he did remember the lines pretty well.  From the take out at Rte 2, the level looked to be low-boatable.  And it was low boatable.  A nice level for an introductory run. We started out, following Dick Cheney’s lead  to an undisclosed location, about 1 ½  miles up Tarbox Road. It was a pull off on UVM land that had a path leading to 10 minute walk to the creek.  We put in just after the first, of  what would prove a half dozen or so blow downs.  For the first 10 minutes of paddling it was more of bog with a swift moving stream through it.  And blow downs.  We came to the first legitimate rapid /  drop, an easy III but midway down we had to portage over a strainer.  We quickly came up to the next drop and hey another blow down.  This one was potentially doable but neither of us felt like this might be the best of ideas.  From there down we pretty much only got out of the boat to scout.  The next drop had a nice flake and small pool to drop into Will was very clear to stay center or left…yup, I ended up right. But no big deal.  The wall was forgiving (Yeah).  We quickly came up to the old dam, which we scouted.  This IV drop is followed by boggie II.  IN the middle of the boggie II there was another blow down.  We had plenty of time to get out and avoid the blow down. As it was low, it was hard to get up speed to get a good boof off the rooster tail on the dam. But once again, it was forgiving.  As we went along there was plenty of blow downs which were manageable as they were in slack water where you could find alternatives (which generally involved pushing off with your hands).  The remnants of Irene were still highly visible with at least two massive landslides still evident.  The next to last drop was probably the most fun.   A fairly clean 8-10 ft water fall into a nice pool.  The last drop was a bit manky but doable even at low water.  You kind of drop onto a ledge (well almost) nose first.  There was enough water that we both managed to sort of slide, without damage, pretty much over it.  After that we had a short paddle to the takeout and then we were done! Not a river that runs much but one I would definitely get back on given the opportunity.  I should note that historically, some of the landowners were not too pleased with boaters about.  We did not meet any and so can not comment.