Day after Turkey Paddle – Crystal – November 24, 2023

Crystal/Punch Brook Rapid

Like the New Year’s Day Paddle, the Day after Turkey/Black Friday Paddle is becoming a bit of a tradition around here - skip the shopping and get out on the river to burn off calories from of that turkey dinner. When I saw that Paul D. was running a CTAMC leaders choice class II trip on Black Friday, I decided to join.

We got some rain on Tuesday that brought up a lot of rivers up and gave us hope for some interesting options. Paul’s initial list included the Salmon, Shepaug, Naugatuck and Housatonic, along with several class II sections of the Farmington - Riverton, Satan’s Kingdom, and Crystal. Unfortunately, by the time Friday came, most of the rivers had dropped, so we ended up on the Crystal section of the Farmington River – fine with me.

Surf wave at the wall

The Farmington arises near Otis, MA and flows generally south and east for 47 miles through Connecticut until it flows into the Connecticut River near Windsor. There are several sections of the Farmington that are popular for whitewater boating – New Boston - class III/IV, “Tville” or the Tariffville Gorge - class II/III, Riverton - class I, Satan’s Kingdom - class I/II(III), and of course Crystal - class II.

Back in the day I took many trips out to Crystal to paddle with Matt and Scott. It’s a long drive for a relatively short run, so I hadn’t been there for years when COVID hit. With the Farmington River Trail running alongside, Crystal was an easy bike shuttle, so Paul and I ran it three times in three months (January, February, March) in 2021. By April most people were vaccinated and the car shuttles started up again. This would be my first time back since then.

Bernackie Rapid

We arrived at the put-in (185 Canton Road, Burlington, CT - 41.794267, -72.925324) at 10:00 to run the shuttle down to the Red Barn. The river had peaked at just over 6.5 feet, 1,000 cfs. on Wednesday, but had dropped back down to 5.5 feet, 700 cfs. by the time we got on the river - low, but still runnable.

The run is a series of class I/II rapids that start off easy and get more difficult as you move downstream. The first major rapid is the site of the Punch Brook Slalom. From there, the rapids continue as a series of rock gardens and wave trains. We spent a lot of time surfing and ferrying through the rock gardens. The largest rapid is the ledge above the Route 4 Bridge that we ran to the right. The run took us about 2 1/2-hours and I was home by 4:00. Sure beats shopping.

Seal Launch from Erik Eckilson on Vimeo.

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My Pictures

Unionville Gage
River Description from American Whitewater