Big Branch Fest 2010

The colors are beautiful, aren't they? I'm glad I drove up from New Jersey to watch the leaves change. Oh, and what are those idiots doing in those silly plastic bathtubs?

Well, I unfortunately missed Moosefest this year, but I've learned the hard way that in New England, it's always best to operate according to the Gottlieb Principle of Kayaking: Never run anything other than the Big Branch or the Middlebury. The Gottlieb Corollary: If the Big Branch and the Middlebury are both too high or too low, just get drunk. Normally, Moosefest is in accordance with the corollary, but this year it rained and snowed in VT right before the weekend, a combination that sounds miserable, but is actually as good as it gets in VT. Friday, the Big Branch was way too high, and I violated the Principle and went for a schwackspedition instead. Saturday, we went to the Big Branch only to find it at 5'. A little on the high side. So, not wanting to violate the Principle, we decided to put on as high as possible on a tributary called Lake Brook that the Forest Service guys had told me about.

Ben unfortunately broke his boat about a mile into Lake Brook and had to hike back out...I found him in his car at the put-in with the seat-heaters on. Once I handed him that beer he became much happier.

We drove up, plowing through about 4 inches of snow on the road, and put on where Forest Service Road 10 ended. It looks like there's some gradient upstream of here on Lake Brook, but we didn't check it out. Next time I go to the Big Branch and it's over the gauge, though, I'll check it out. After some complicated shuttle antics, we put on four miles upstream of the normal put in with a group of ten or so. Lake Brook was mostly class III boogie, but it was interesting nonetheless and had a couple fun drops. We all spread out over the course of the Upper Upper Big Branch, eventually meeting up again at the regular putin, where it was apparent the river was quite high. Half of us walked out, planning to come back the next day for a more reasonable level. The other half carried on down with stories of backenders, hole rides, and one swim, but all in all a good run.

Me stomping it on the best boof on the Upper Big Branch. Photo Owen Cadwalader.

Sunday, we -- shockingly -- went back to the Big Branch. It was just over 3' all day, rising to 3.5' by the end of the day. I love October snowmelt. Another excellent day on the Big Branch. We rolled into the takeout around noon to see ten or fifteen cars. There must've been 50 people on the river that day. Weirdly enough, we didn't actually see anyone on the river other than our group, but they must've been out there somewhere.

Me about to boof left not once but twice. Photo Owen Cadwalader.

Jeff Sharpe about to boof left. For the second time. On Boof Left Twice.

Monday, I decided it would just be plain irresponsible to go to school. So I went back to the Big Branch again. To find it at 3', still. Yup. Justin, Adam, and I ran a lap in about 15 minutes, then my elbows started hurting, so I sat the next two laps out. Ben Peters showed up, having attended one class and skipped his second, so I rallied and we ran another two laps. It was just Justin and I for the last one and we crashed into each other about five times. I boofed into an eddy in the Mank Below Cave only to turn back and see the bottom of his boat over my head right before he landed on my stern. Might be the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me on the Big Branch.

G. Owen Cadwalader on Boof Left Twice. I've been working on trying to get some panning shots, they haven't been turning out great, but they're getting better.

Magdalena Dale on the Danby Slides.

Alan "I Just Soloed the Big Branch at 3'" Panebaker.

Epic First D in the Upper Valley

Well, I hate to say it, but I think kayaking has been getting in the way of my blogging lately. Kayaking is just so fun it's hard to do anything else...such as go to school, or blog about kayaking.

A little over a week ago, it rained 5" in VT and NH...again. Ben and I left Hanover after class on Friday afternoon hoping for the usual super high water options -- Upper Jacob's Brook, or maybe even Atwell Brook if stuff was really high. Lo and behold...Upper Jake's was flooding the bridges on the way upstream. No dice.

This creek is normally about 100cfs. At runnable levels.

Unfortunately for him, I'd convinced James Deusenberry to abandon his plans to run Pike Brook solo (two hours away in eastern NY) and drive over to meet us. So we pulled out our gazetteers and decided to go explore something we'd both started hiking up once in the last few years and then got fed up with. And rather than hike up it -- which, in retrospect, would've allowed us to abort mission much earlier -- we decided to put on at the very top and set shuttle to the bottom. And there were no roads on the map in between.

James contemplates the putin -- the left side of the road in the picture.

We drove up to Indian Pond Lake in Orford, NH, and seal launched off a culvert into a beaver-dam infested bog. Which turned out to be the most pleasant half mile of paddling of the day. Quite beautiful, really. Anyway, we ran a few beaver dams, floated through some tunnels of foliage, and eventually came out in a small rapid filled with wood. We portaged and found a bridge just downstream -- a private road that was not on the map. We decided to scout a little further downstream just to see if it might be worth it and found an awesome sequence that dropped probably 30 or 40 feet. Naturally, we ran it, and thought maybe the creek would keep going like that.

Nope. Four hours, a hole in my drysuit, and one sunset later, we were back at the cars, having paddled/portaged most of the creek until it became clear that a microburst tornado had come through and filled the creekbed with wood. At which point we decided to hike out on the logging road next to it...which unfortunately was also filled with wood. We ran one other decently fun drop, a 15' slide that we seal launched into below a log jam.

All in all, epic adventure. Don't go run Indian Pond Brook. Sure, it drops 500' in a mile, but it just isn't worth it.

Sandusky Brook Falls

Well, I'm a bit behind because of how long I took to write up the Romaine TR, but a couple weeks ago, New England got what may have been the biggest storm it's gotten all year. About 5" of rain in 30 hours. Many paddlers were skunked by the infamous North Branch of the Winooski because -- for a change -- it was too high, only to be too low the next morning. I had class all morning Friday and convinced Brian Seitz and Sam Streeter to come look for something low enough to run in the afternoon.

Our first stop was a waterfall I'd scouted with Brian at low water a few months earlier on a tiny creek called Sandusky Brook. At low water, there was a funky boof ledge a few feet below the lip and I thought you would either be able to run the boof or plug to the left of it at higher water. I didn't anticipate how much higher the water would be, though.

The low water scout. Note the rock above the lip at the top.

We drove over the bridge over the creek and were all pleasantly surprised to see how much higher the manky drops at the bottom were than last time. We then bushwhacked through the woods into the waterfall from the terrible dirt road next to it and were all a little surprised to see it higher than I thought it could ever get. The rock above the lip in the picture above was not a rock, it was a hole, and the lip started about that high -- maybe five feet higher than it did at low water. And the boof ledge was even more strange looking than it had been at low water. And unfortunately, the left side had filled in so much that it was now pillowing off the left wall, and also extending so far left that part of it landed in shallow water.

It's kind of nerve-wracking when you need to change angle twice over the course of a 35' waterfall. Photo Brian Seitz.

The pool also flowed so rapidly out that there was no chance someone would get to shore if swimming, even with a rope, before the next rapid. The first little rapid wasn't terrible, but the one immediately downstream had a terrible rock and a nasty strainer. And the one downstream of that had an even nastier strainer. Knowing I'd rather have Brian and Sam on safety, I scouted the putin to make sure I could get in on my own and then sent them downstream. Brian ferried across to river right to set safety from that side, as river left was sheer walled all the way down to the second strainer. Once they were set up, I got into my boat, precariously perched on a log on shore and seal launched into a tiny eddy at the lip. I snuck out behind the rock/hole and went across to the right, catching the curler coming off the end of it and managing to nail my line, melting down between the pillow off the left wall and the weird boof on the right, landing upright.

Letting the water turn me back left as I hit the pillow. Photo Seitz.

Lessons learned: definitely tuck your paddle to the side on drops this big. I was whited out and couldn't really tell where I was top to bottom and didn't manage to tuck in time and tweaked my arm as a result.

Taking the stroke on my way down that turned me center/right so I didn't piton. Photo Seitz.

Whiteout. Photo Seitz.

Afterwards, we headed over to Lincoln Brook to check out that park and huck, but it was so clogged with wood we couldn't really run it, so we routed on down to Patterson, which turned out to be quite high. Brian got beat in a hole, rolled up and got out on shore and started hiking up to the road. Then dropped his boat into the river. At which point I started chasing after it solo through some huge holes, eventually getting worked myself and deciding to just call it...only to discover that the takeout (and flatwater, where we definitely would have gotten the boat) was only a quarter mile downstream. Oh well, sorry Brian.

Saturday, Ben Peters, Kevin McGregor, James Duesenberry and I ran the Upper Pemi, which ended up setting off my elbow tendonitis to the point where I haven't really been able to paddle much (a lap on the Big Branch last week got it so painful I was groaning while running shuttle for the next lap). I've since gotten elbow braces that seem to be helping. If anyone has any experience with this and with curing it let me know...it happens by the end of just about every season. Lateral and medial epicondylitis -- e.g., tennis and golfer's elbow, both.

Romaine Day 6

Catch up on the rest of the trip here.

Day 6:
12 miles
1.7 miles of bogging
1 communal pot of poutine in Havre St. Pierre

Well, we got up on the last day thinking wow, blue sky, nice out, this is great. As soon as we took down our tarp it started pouring rain, so we all raced into our drysuits and felt thoroughly demoralized. Right off the bat there was some big class III, followed by about 6 miles of flatwater to La Grande Chutes, the only unrun (unrunnable) rapid left on the river.

Boyce taking it in. The bottom ~60' of the 100+' cascade.

6 more miles of flatwater and two huge class IVs later Greg brought us in to a completely unmarked spot on river left where we proceeded to hike our 100lb boats up a ridiculously steep bank...Turns out Greg is a superhero and did the last bit of it three times as Isaac and I were dragging ass. Unfortunately, the top of the hill was not at the road, but instead at the beginning of the bog. The group that went a few weeks earlier than us had gotten lost in the bog and ended up spending four or five hours there. Thankfully, Boyce had a great route planned out on the GPS and led us fearlessly through 1.7 miles of bog in about an hour and a half. We came out of the woods onto a road -- no river in sight -- in far Northern Quebec exactly where we had stashed takeout beers a week earlier.

Bogging.

Boyce hitched a ride to the winnebago while the rest of us got drunk off one or two beers each. Meanwhile, a cop drove by, spun around and pulled up next to us. As he pulled up, Isaac filmed Greg pulling a knife and saying, "This cop better not fuck with us." Can't wait to see the footage. Then Scott decided to talk to the cop in English with a fake Quebecois accent. Boyce turned up and we proceeded to Le Promenade, a restaurant in Havre St. Pierre where we enjoyed some fine poutine before rallying back to the U S of A.

The crew after enjoying a healthy serving of poutine.

All in all, what an incredible trip. The inclement weather definitely made it a little more of a survival trip than it would have been. A big thanks to Boyce for putting the trip together, and thanks to Darin McQuoid for his helpful post on doing a self support trip. A couple things I'd add: definitely do not expect a bivy to work without a tarp in the rain. Really, don't use a bivy, just bring a good tarp. Also, make sure to try packing all your stuff into your boat at least once before driving 20 hours to the river. And, bring a small, lightweight thermarest. Comfort is nice, but cheap ones are very bulky and difficult to fit in kayaks.

The Willy Kern shot.

La Riviere Romaine, Days 4 and 5

If you haven't read the first few days, check them out here.

Day 4:
31 miles

Not a ton to say about day 4. We woke up to find wolf tracks throughout the camp all our sleeping areas...glad I didn't wake up during the night.

The scenery still sucked.

We geared up and paddled 31 miles of flatwater in the rain with a headwind (as per usual) to our next campsite, an island in the middle of the river with lots of wet wood and black flies. At camp, we could hear blasting sounds and saw construction lights ahead of us on the river.

Jonathan celebrating a brief moment of blue sky...don't worry the rain came back shortly after.

Day 5:
20 miles

20 minutes of flatwater into the last day, we rounded a corner and were confronted with a huge construction site. A busy road (complete with a guard rail) lead trucks and other vehicles down to a massive bridge across the river and a granite dome with a huge chunk blown out of it that is to become the diversion channel for Romaine 2. We paddled under the bridge through a small rapid filled with road blast...not something you expect on a wilderness run. A few of the construction workers came out in a boat and spoke to us. They said they've been working really hard for the last five months (which was obvious, since there was almost nothing at the Romaine 2 site a year earlier when Boyce and Greg had done the trip). Oh well.

Progress.

Day 5 only had a few rapids, but they were definitely the biggest of the trip. Shortly after the construction, we got to Finger of Fate (aka Spike Rapid) which we all snuck river right through some sievy low volume bouldery stuff. Isaac hiked up and ran the Finger itself disappearing even earlier above the lip than I thought he would, resurfacing a couple seconds later backwards at the bottom of the drop and paddling away.

Stuntman (aka Freebird Falls) was next, another huge rapid. A relatively easy leadin led off this broken 15' ledge with a horrendous looking landing zone that went perfectly fine if you rode it out to near the point of the ledge and then dropped off. Unfortunately, I didn't scout the leadin carefully enough, so I came in just a little too far right. Just above the point of the ledge, there are two humps. Boyce and Greg both had good lines going between the two humps and dropping off a little earlier than the point. It also looked like you could go over the river right hump and off the very point of the drop for a better boof (Jonathan in fact managed to hit this line). I hit the river right hump and then fell right. I realized it was happening, looked down, spotted my landing and braced into the pillow I was landing on. I hit a rock but was upright and thought I was fine...then disappeared underwater. All the water from the river right side of the falls, it turned out, pounded into this huge boulder. I got smashed into a bow-down pin with my chest against a rock ledge, probably on this boulder. After a few seconds, I was flushed off violently and felt rock just about everywhere. My boat also filled up with water. Eventually I rolled up and paddled over to the island everyone else was on. I wasn't sure if I was ok, and I thought I'd broken my boat because it was filled with water and my skirt appeared to still be on. All told, I came out with a gaping hole in my chin (that Greg wanted to sow up with fishing line, though I decided we didn't have enough whiskey left for that), several gaping holes in my skirt, and a badly bruised chest. All things considered, a pretty good outcome. I wish I'd scouted the leadin a little more carefully.

Greg styling Freebird Falls.

The next rapid we scouted was called Triple Threat, a pretty huge, long rapid that involved punching two holes on the right then quickly turning around, ferrying across to river left to avoid a massive ledge hole, and then busting back right through the runout. Apparently Eric Boomer came into this one their first year and said, "Looks good," and they ran it blind...I'm glad we scouted. Immediately following is the leadin to what I suspect is one of the largest rapids ever run, Land of the Giants. Boomer ran the bottom two holes (of probably seven) on one of the earlier trips and swam out of the bottom hole. Isaac fired it up from the top, styling everything until the bottom hole where he get worked briefly but flushed. Pretty impressive paddling.

After the rest of us portaged, ate, and lounged on the rocks in the brief period of sunshine, we paddled another twelve miles of flatwater to the last rapid before camp. Shortly after LotG, we saw a pipe in the river and wondered briefly what it might be...within a few hundred yards we realized. They were pumping raw human sewage into the river. For the rest of the trip we were paddling in shit. It was at least as gross as it sounds. After twelve miles of shit paddling, we encountered another horizon line that Boyce told us to follow him off. It turned out to be a busy lead-in to an awesome six foot boof over a big hole through one of the narrowest spots on the river called Zero to Hero or Boof to Camp. Camp was a couple hundred yards downstream on a rock outcropping.

Jonathan showing off the "gaper arms" boof on Zero to Hero.

The rock outcropping we hung out in, complete with rock benches.

You can read about the last day here.