 |
| The crew meets at the put-in |
It was 6:00 a.m. when I headed out to meet Paul at the Wendy’s on Route 495 in Milford for a trip to New Hampshire for a new whitewater river – the Little Suncook.
The Little Suncook is a short river (just 4-miles long) that flows generally west from Northwood Lake in the town of Epsom through Bixbey Pond to join the Suncook River near the Epsom Traffic Circle. The river can be difficult to catch running during spring runoff, after periods of heavy rain, and in the fall for the annual drawdown of Northwood Lake. Unfortunately, there is no USGS gage on the river.
 |
| Looking upstream from the put-in |
We headed north to meet Joe and a group from the NHAMC at the rest area on Route 202 in Epsom. As we checked out the river from the put-in we found a narrow, creek-like river with lots of rocks, drops and waves. With the dam release, the water was in the trees making eddies tough to catch. We knew that we would have to be on our toes due to the constant twists and turns.
We ran the shuttle down to the take out behind the Cumberland Farms (16 Black Hall Road, Epsom). We had 8 boats – 4 canoes (Joe, Harry, Charlie and me) and 4 kayaks (Eric, Tim, Brian and Paul). We skipped the top class III/IV rapid, but even so, the river gets your attention quickly with a tricky class II+ rapid just downstream of the put-in. We had our first swim there as Joe dumped in a shallow drop. He got out of the water easily, but his boat went about ¼ mile before Harry was able to get it into one of the shore eddies.
 |
| Running the upper rapid |
We after the first set of rapids, we continued downstream into Bixby Pond – the impound from the Bixbie Pond Dam that we portaged on the right. The dam can be run on the left, and Eric made it look easy.
Below the Bixby Pond Dam the river alternates between quickwater and rapids with three challenging class II+/III rapids. The first is a short technical rapid about a quarter mile below the dam. The second is at Center Hill Road - Tim had a swim here. The third is about a mile downstream under a small footbridge where there are several holes, drops and big waves – Tim and Brian had swims here. While Brian got his boat to shore quickly, Tim’s boat traveled downstream and got pinned on a large strainer – it took a while to get it off.
 |
| One picture of me |
With 4 swims and one pinned boat, the 3-mile trip took us about 2 1/2 hours, which meant we didn’t have time for a second run. Still a fun run and I will be back. I was in the upper section and caught this paddler as he came through, which happened to be Mike Rock - small world.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.