Knightville Section of the Westfield - July 10, 2021

Heading out

It takes a lot of rain to get the local whitewater rivers up to a decent level in the summer, and we had it this week. Evening thunderstorms saturated the ground, then Tropical Storm Elsa rolled through on Friday dumping 4-5 inches of rain in many parts of southern New England. I decided to join Paul D. for a trip in the Knightville section of the Westfield. 

The Westfield River arises in the Berkshires and flows generally southeast for 78 miles to its confluence with the Connecticut River in Agawam. The river has three main branches that join in Huntington to form the main stem - the North Branch (sometimes called the East Branch) including Pork Barrel; the Middle Branch; and the West Branch that includes the section we would be paddling today below the Knightville Dam. 

Eric and Amy

The road up to the dam was closed, so we put in at the gate and took out at the Gazebo on Route 20. The river was at a nice level starting around 1400 cfs, but dropping to around 1200 cfs before we finished. The river is mostly class II/II+ rock-dodging until you enter the Gorge in the Gardner State Park. 

There are two drops in the Gorge section. The first is an unnamed rapid that is about 25 yards long that I ran to the right. The second is a 3-foot ledge known as the Gorge Drop. It can be seen from upstream by a big rock in the middle of the river. You run this just to the right of the rock, and move left to catch the eddy, or at least avoid the big haystacks downstream.  From the Gorge Drop down to the take out there is more rock-dodging. The run took about 2 hours at a leisurely pace.

 
Gorge Drop on the Knightville section of the Westfield from Erik Eckilson on Vimeo.

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Knightville Gage