Wells, Dawn Patrol, 11-19-07

Ran the Wells at dawn today with Anna and Toth. It's 18 degrees at the Wells right now, which means it was probably close to 10 when we were paddling. Check out my icicles:


And on the beard:

Wells River, 11-18-07

Went to the Wells today, at a little over 200 cfs, with Klem, Emily, Kevin, Joe, Ana, Toth, and David:



Emily on the second drop:


Toth on the second drop:


I ran four laps on the waterfall while they were scouting and landed stern first on one of them (with a huge boof). Ana's brother has some video, I'll post it as soon as I get it.

Middlebury Gorge, 11-17-07

I finally got on the Middlebury; it was great. Fallopian Tube (the falls at the entrance to the gorge) is an amazing drop:


Despite pretty epic conditions,


a huge crowd showed up, probably twenty boaters.


Here's a shot looking up at the gorge from below Rebirth:

You can see the log at Rebirth -- it's not as bad as it looks, you clear it easily, but worrying about it makes it tempting to ignore other aspects of the drop, and I pitoned badly in the drop. Luckily I hurt both my knee and my ankle or I might've broken one of them.

N. B. Winooski, 11-16-07

Ran the North Branch of the Winooski at low water yesterday with Strauss, Justin, his friend Alex, Scott Gilbert and his friend Ben. It's a fun run, a fair amount of flat water but a good number of big, easy drops.
There's more photos in the gallery, but here are some of the highlights:

Alex boofing at the top of a fun slide:


The awesome boof ledge Strauss and I ran twice:









Me at the bottom of the last drop:

Wells, 11-7-07

Ran the Wells around 275 with Strauss today:

Strauss on a mediocre line (heading towards the rock):

Strauss redeeming himself:

Me, following a nice line just right of the rock and into the current:

I'm in there, I swear. You can see my paddle blades sticking out. They look sort of like rocks.

Downtown Mascoma, 11/1 and 11/2/07

Ran Downtown twice with Jeff yesterday and three times today with Jeff, Scott, and Mike. Finally got some decent pictures, too. Something about running it when the sun is still out.

Not Middlebury, and New Haven 10-29-07

So I was going to run the Middlebury Gorge yesterday with Justin Crannell, but due to my taking a wrong turn on the way we didn't have time and headed to the New Haven instead. Unfortunately, on the way, I was hit by an old lady. I was happy to just let the damage go and not call the cops, even though the damage to my car was significantly worse than to her's (although not major in either case):

Her car:



She insisted on calling the cops, so Justin went on and ran the New Haven without me while I sat there and dealt with the police. After the cop left (over an hour later, I'd guess) I bombed up to the New Haven and caught Justin just after he'd de-geared. Thankfully, he geared up again and we sped down the New Haven in about 15 minutes. It seems like a fun run. I didn't get any pictures of us, although Justin's friend got some video, and I took a picture of Toaster: