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Mar 9, 2024: Sheepscot River, 1220cfs

Participants: K1: Jake Bourdeau, Ron Chase, John ?, and son, Noah; OC1: Ross Cameron, TC: Kenny DeCoster 

With all the rain this past week, the rivers were flowing and mostly in flood stage. A safe choice for a Saturday club paddle appeared to be the Sheepscot. When I posted it to the club, I was reminded that Carolyn Welch and David Lanman always had midcoast class II trips scheduled a week before my “ice breaker” trip on the Sou (Saturday, March 23). I was constantly impressed how eager Carolyn was to get people out paddling in the spring. She was on my mind as I floated down the river.

Friday was sunny and a toasty 50+ degrees. Saturday was overcast and never reached 40. Fortunately, there wasn’t any wind. 2 local paddlers, John and Noah, met us at the take out and knew Ross. They drove home, pick up their boats, and caught up to us on the river. With 1220 cfs, the current picked up and standing waves formed. The six of us had a grand time exercising our dormant paddling muscles catching eddies and surfing waves. Jake successfully ran the broken-down dam in Whitefield in his new creek boat which I had never witnessed before.

The waves below the breached Head Tide dam proved to be the challenge. 2 boaters swam, 1 a little further downstream. All paddlers and gear were recovered so I can proudly announce that I didn’t lose anybody on my trip. Thanks goes out to Ryan and Shweta Galway who showed up for a second run on the Sheepscot and instead were instrumental in the rescue efforts. I ‘ll be watching the ice shelves melt away this week. See You on the Water.

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Jan 27, 2024: Mt Blue/Rangeley Lakes Trails Center

Participants: Ron Chase and Brent Elwell TC: Kenny DeCoster

Thankfully, the forecast called for several inches of snow (and not rain) on Friday, so I called Mt. Blue to see if the trails would be groomed by midday Saturday. Instead of ideal skiing conditions, I found out the Maple “round the mountain” Trail was closed because of beaver activity. I hastily changed the venue to Rangeley Lakes Trails Center. There, Ron, Brent, and I were treated to freshly groomed trails. Cool temperatures, no wind, and new snow made for incredible skiing. We skied to the northeast corner of the property and did a double loop down Ron’s favorite hill, then climbed for a mile towards the southeast corner to ski down the Larry Hill trail. With Saddleback Mountain shrouded in clouds we cruised through the snow covered spruce forest to the parking lot. The only bad decision the TC made was to follow Brent down a snowshoe trail where it was so narrow that negotiating the turns was comical. I had made an identical error several years before at Mt Blue. Will I ever learn? We skied about 9 ½ miles, and with a drive of 3 hours both ways, it made for a full day.

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Oct 14, 2023: North Branch of The Piscataquag

Participants-  Ryan Galway & Krea Galway OC-2,  Mason Galway C-1,  Evan Eichorn OC-1,  Ron Chase K-1,  Ken Gordon K-1,  Bill Stafford K-1,  Paul Bicknell K-1,  Paul Leclerc K-1,  Eric Kingsley K-1.

We had a decent weather day for this trip with temps in the high 50s and low 60s and some filtered sun.  The day began with an entertaining seal launch by Mason down the grassy bank to the water which no one chose to repeat.  We had a couple of first timers on this trip and I am always a little nervous in making sure they know the lines on this shallow creaky run to avoid any injury’s.  The first test is a rapid called Slab City which is a 6 foot drop at the site of an old dam.  The preferred line is river left.  Most of the boats did quite well but even the ones that were a little off line made it through upright.  We continued down river encountering some wood obstructions which is typical on this narrow low volume run,  but we were able to get over or around them without too much trouble.  The rest of the larger drops were all run successfully with a little bit of trouble by some boaters at Buzzels rapid which is one of the more challenging drops but still everyone remained in their boats.  Down river we saw some nice enders by Mason at a rapid called turnover.  The run wasn’t complete without a couple minor swims in the lower rapids,  none of which were of any consequence.

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West Virginia/Pennsylvania Fall Trip

Participants – Ron Chase,  Ryan Galway – Shredder,  Kenney Decoster OC-1,  Craig Mckinnon OC-1,  Mason Galway C-1,  Sean Green K-1,  Tony Lepore K-1,  Chris Blauert K-1,  Robert Allen K-1,  Blil Blauvelt K-1.  This was the crew for the big run on the Lower Gauley.  We started the day by using the Hills to Hills Shuttle Service run by Adina Joy.  Adina did a great job taking care of all of our needs at a reasonable price.  We had such a great experience with her that we decided to use her all 4 days we were in the Fayetteville area,  and she even kept an eye out for us Saturday night so we didn’t get ticketed or towed downtown.  The Lower Gauley was an exhilarating experience.  We put in at a couple of rapids above the usual put in giving us a few rapids on the Middle Gauley which gave us a warm up.  Soon after we got into the meat of things and had a swim at Backender rapid.  Things continued along quite a while after that without incident.   We got into a groove and everybody was doing well until we had another swim at Upper Mash.  This one was on the longer side and we actually saw this rapid dump two different shredder teams that were not in our group.  After getting our swimmer to the eddy on the right at the bottom while catching his breath and shaking his head in disappointment his only response was,  “I got mashed.”  After collecting everyone we continued on to one final scary swim at the bottom of Pure Screaming Hell.  Every one made it through in good shape and slept well that night.

Following the Gauley events Bill and Bob headed home and Mason found a group at the campground to take on the Upper Gauley with.  The rest of us headed off to the New for a lower water run at -1 ft.  The last time I was here the level was 2 ft and things were significantly bigger!  This -1 ft made things more technical and less pushy than our excitement of the day before.  The New River Gorge is managed by the National Park Service and preserves a beautiful stretch of river with giant boulders and towering walls reaching over 1000 ft up on each side.  The warm water and sunny weather made for a great day and we almost finished without incident if it weren’t for a rapid near the end called Miller’s Folly.   At this point everyone was having a dry hair day and people began to try some nontraditional lines through some of the rapids.  A kayak entered Miller’s Folly on the right side and narrowly avoided being pushed up against an undercut on the right.  The canoe following was not so lucky and got plastered against the rock and the boat got pinned under the undercut rock.  We were unable to free the boat due to the dangerous spot it was in so the canoeist was forced to hitch a ride out on the shredder.  Following the takeout we headed to the visitor center to report the lost boat.  As we pulled into the parking lot we received a call from a ranger who told us someone had retrieved the boat.

Following this run Tony,  Chris and Sean headed home and Mason joined up for the retrieval run the next day.  All went well.  The boat had a rather large dent in it but other than that the rest of the gear was all accounted for.  After that run Ron bid us farewell.

The 4 of us returned for one more run on the New.  Mason scared us all with a daredevil slide down the put in stairs but made it without incident and the rest of the day was nothing but warm water and great views as we made our day down river.

After the New we drove northeast to the town of Ohiopyle PA.  We enjoyed two great days of boating on the lower Yough.  Mason ran the falls the first day and Bill Blauvelt joined back up with us for the day on Thursday.  We had some great surfing on swimmers and the waves below.  Bill challenged us all with some interesting creek lines and we even had one inconsequential swim at dimple rock rapid.

Friday we drove further north and east for the final run of the trip on the Lehigh.  Jake Bordeau met up with us and Kenny bid us farewell.  We suffered through the first rain of the trip on Friday and Saturday but the group was all smiles  with high sloshy water and warm temps.  All in all it was an amazing trip with great family and friends in a beautiful outdoor setting.  I am forever grateful to this club for making times like this possible.  Many thanks to all of the participants for joining me on this adventure.

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Sep 17, 2023, Kennebec Gorge at 5000cfs

Kayakers: TC’s Suzanne and Gary Cole, Jeff Sweet, Ken Gordon, Paul LeClerc, Pat Cavanagh, Peter Hockmeyer, Matt Porter, and in a tandem duckie: Clyde Mitchell and Jessa Solis.

Clear blue skies and warming temperatures greeted us on the day after the storm. Once again, we made our way down the river surfing and squirting where we could. We had some rolls below Big Mama and in Magic but it all worked out well. Jessa and Clyde continued down while the rest of us took out at Carry Brook. There was a group of Connecticut boaters on the river and it was nice to see more than the usual number of kayakers enjoying a day on the Kennebec. We even saw Peggy Dwyer with a raft full of friends – that was a blast from the past.