 |
| The shuttle bus |
With the Easter holidays, I hadn’t done any whitewater
paddling in a couple of weeks, so I
decided to take Easter Monday as a vacation day to run the Upper Millers with
Andy, Paul, Ken G. and John Kaz.
Andy wanted to get an early start, which worked out fine
with me. We met at the take-out on
Crescent Street in Athol at 9:30 and piled all the boats on my van for the
shuttle. When we arrived at the
put-in on Blossom Road in South Royalston, the river looked like it was at a
perfect level – 4.5 feet, 1,500 cfs on the Birch Hill Dam Gage.
We put in and headed down the first rapid – a long class III
with lots of rock to dodge and some great wave trains. The rapid ends at a railroad bridge
with some big waves that are great for practicing jet-ferries. John Kaz (owner of Millbrook Boats)
could do more that that. He was
paddling a new Blink (9 feet long, 28 inches wide), and he could make that boat
dance.
The rest of the run was just as fun. We took our time and played in some of the
easier rapids downstream. Kaz
would always seek out the biggest waves, and the Blink never took on water. I had to dump my Encore at the end of
each rapid. He was bailing with a sponge. I did get to paddle the Blink at the end of the run - fun boat.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.