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John Beardsley, Xavier, and I went to the Swift yesterday. It was snowing as we drove over the Kanc, but the sun came out when we got there. Fortunately, Beardsley forgot his skirt, so we had shuttle (jogging the 7+ miles would’ve been fun). Xav and I put on at the Rocky Gorge putin (just above Upper Falls). According to the pictures on the state park sign there, the water was high (and great). Upper Falls was pretty straightforward, and it was followed by a good amount of class III boogie up until Lower Falls, which I’d call class V at the level we were there.

Xav’s first run didn’t go so well:

So he had to run it twice more:

I ran it down an easier double hoochie glide on river right.

After Lower Falls, there was a mile or two of easy boogie followed by a great, continuous few miles of class IV. Big holes, big water, all fun and boat scoutable.

I ran shuttle for Beardsley (with my skirt) and Xav to run from Lower Falls down, afterwards. The Swift is a great run, especially at higher water. It’s in a really beautiful area, too, and almost worth it just for the drive back across the Kanc as the sun is going down.

‘Nuff said?

Brad Croteau has been looking at this creek in the Great North Woods on a topo map for a while. Pond Brook drops into Nash Stream about five miles up from the gate on Nash Stream Road a little east of Groveton, NH. At 4:15 PM, we started hiking up the road with our boats, hoping to run or at least scout Pond Brook with water and then paddle out Nash Stream.

On April 29th, we were hiking through heavy snow to check out an unrun creek. Eventually we made it:

We dropped our boats and started hiking up Pond Brook. Brad cut through to the river (15 yards off the trail or so) and started yelling “Holy shit!”

It’s probably the biggest slide with the most water I’ve ever seen. It almost definitely didn’t go at the level we were there — you’d have to be more than insane — but Brad thinks it’ll go at lower water. It’s a huge (significantly more than 100 vertical feet) slide into a really nasty slot into an 8 foot boof into some shallow runout with logs.

When I got back I looked at the stream in TOPO!…it turns out the first .3 miles (where we were) drop well over 250 feet. Upstream, though, looks like a mile that drops about 250 feet, which might be sane and fun. We’re hoping to go back at slightly lower water and better weather to check out the top stretch and see if the slide is runnable.

As it was getting dark we put on Nash Stream to paddle five miles out. It only drops a little over 200 feet in 5 miles, but it had so much water in such a narrow bed that a lot of the rapids were solid class IV. Didn’t get many pictures because it was snowing and cold, but here’s Brad:

Went to the white playhole yesterday afternoon. Turns out there’s actually a really nice wave up top on river left, at the level it was at. It spins really nicely, and definitely blunts although I was having trouble sticking one (more me than the wave). I got a few pictures of Xavier:

Pond Brook has been running for a few weeks, so after not paddling it at all in the Fall, I’ve run it 20 or more times in the last three weeks. It’s a lot of fun if you just book it. I’ve been going too fast most of the time to get pictures, but here are a few:

Jeff in Screw 2:

Me in the last drop:

After hearing of this run from Jolyon (pretty vaguely), Jeff, Alfie, and I decided to go check it out. It drains into the Connecticut just below the bridge between Hanover and Norwich, so we set shuttle to Ledyard and drove up. Eventually, using the topo maps on my GPS, we found the putin. This run is not great: it’s 6 drops or so, one or two of which are cool, and a couple of which are not. There’s a big slide that involves a lot of rock hits no matter how you run it, and an absolutely terrifying 100yd+ long tunnel filled with rocks and holes (probably continuous III/IV whitewater in total darkness). That tunnel was probably some of the scariest boating any of us have ever done. When we got back from the run, Jolyon had sent me an email saying, “I don’t recommend running the tunnel. Running it solo was probably one of the top ten stupidest things I’ve done.”

On the bright side, the big drop looks pretty cool. Alfie:

Jeff:

The smaller slide above the big one:

If anyone else runs this, they should stop and ask the landowner next to the big drop. She came down to the river and spoke to us, saying she owns the land on both sides of the river and is OK with us paddling but would appreciate it if we came and asked first.

Joe’s Brook is a phenomenal class III/IV run in northern VT. We ran the 10 mile section from the power station (not the dam; well downstream of there) to the takeout bridge. It’s mostly continuous class III boogie interspersed with big low angle slides. There’s one big one in the section before the covered bridge and one big one under the covered bridge (that rapid is probably IV+). Didn’t get many pictures, but got a couple of the first big slide (above covered bridge):

Mink Brook is basically on the Dartmouth campus. It was running for a few weeks from snowmelt, so I ran it twice, once from route 120 to route 10 with Jeff Sharpe and once from about a mile above 120 down to 10 with Xavier and Emily. It’s a fun class III run with a fair amount of wood (although only one or two easy portages, both in the lower section). Supposedly there’s more upstream; a couple “big” drops. I haven’t seen them yet.

Emily on the first drop:

The ledges are in West Lebanon, NH. Xav and I ran them a few weeks ago. It’s a sequence of four drops: a five foot sort-of boof, followed by a really nice 10 foot boof, an ~8 foot drop that can be run through a neat slot up against the river right wall or down a two tiered slide in the middle, and a really strange looking slide that drops probably ~20-25 feet. The last drop unfortunately has a big log blocking the only reasonable approach line, so we didn’t run it. It looks pretty marginal regardless: there’s a huge boil in the middle of the rapid (unclear what forms it) and a bit of an undercut in the last slot.

Me on the boof:

Xav and I below the slot drop (#3; we didn’t run it):

Xav running the center line of the slot drop (#3):

Scouting the last rapid (and then not running it):

We had to hike back up the river left shore, ferry across to river right, and there’s a cove after drop #3 where you can scramble out. A couple people helped us rope our boats out.

Finally got on the Mettawee a few weeks ago with Xavier, Ana, Alfie, Justin, and Tripp and Jeff from Middlebury. I think it was getting towards the high end of medium, but I don’t remember the level. It’s fun; totally pool drop, a fair amount of flatwater, and one heinous sieve, but a couple neat drops. Xav and Jeff ran Triple Drop, the rest of us walked.

Tripp cruising past the sieve:

Justin on the slide half of the last drop:

Xav on the falls half of the last drop:

It’s really hard to boof that drop in the right place. Xav and I ran that side and both tried to drive right across a curler just above the lip and ended up basically subbing out in a seam and being shoved left (towards the hole) before falling off.

One day of the trip we went to The Slab, a play hole in NC. It was fun, albeit pretty cold. We managed to convince David Kinney and Kevin McGregor to try Harry Potters…somehow, Kinney managed to miss his skirt loop the first time and didn’t actually manage to get out of his boat.

Kevin, mid Harry Potter-attempt: