| Summary | Chris G. and Greg W. head to the Rapid River near Errol, NH. |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-07-25 07:17:24 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
Kayaking the Rapid River July 13-14, 2007 Greg Wallace, Chris Glazner Trip Report This was my most memorable trip paddling yet! Greg talked me into heading up to the Rapid with him for one of its scheduled releases. Ok, he didn't have to do a lot of convincing. The Rapid is a remote river, way far north on the border between NH and ME. It flows from a lake in Maine into Lake Umbagog in NH. It was one heck of a drive. We stayed with Greg parents in NH, then headed up to the river on Saturday morning. The putin is down a series of logging roads, which for the most part are OK, until you get to the takeout, at which point it becomes a Class V offroad experience. My CR-V made it, although I wasn't very nice to it! We didn't have a shuttle set up, so we waited for an hour to find someone to run shuttle with us, all the while getting chewed up by bugs. We finally met up with some guys from NH that turned out to be a lot of fun. We stupidly elected to take a "trail" for about a mile through dense woods to the first rapid, instead of paddling across a lake for a while to get to the start of the river. This was a BAD decision. This trail was nasty, narrow, overgrown, with mud up to your shins in places and nasty little scrambles, all while carrying a boat on your shoulder. Yeah, it sucked. We won't do it again unless there's one of the Gilbertson brothers with us to speed ahead with our boats and get everything ready for us when we get there :) This was my first real Class IV river, as in the majority of the rapids are Class IV, and flipping is a bad idea, and swimming is worse. The first three rapids were awesome, with huge wave trains. They were huge! It was a big water kinda feel. When in the troughs, you couldn't see anything at all. The best part is that they kept coming at you, one after the other, non stop. There wasn't just one huge wave, there were like 50. They were a huge rush! I had a blast while Greg constantly glanced over his shoulder to see if I had managed to hurt myself yet. After the "ledges" comes Smooth Ledge, one of the best playspots in New England. Here's where all the people were! There were tons of folks, most electing to just hang out at the playspot all day rather than run the river. There was a large, friendly hole with pretty good eddy service on both sides. By the mid-afternoon on this gorgeous day, there were 20 people waiting in line for their shot at glory, while quite the crowd looked on. It was a bit weird having this many people with this kind of atmosphere in the middle of nowhere! It took me a while to get the hang of getting into the hole. I kept getting blown off it, or never even making it into it. I didn't feel too bad, because other folks were missing it as well. Greg had a couple really good rides. Of course, when I was out of my boat and had the camera he was only so-so, but I promise that the had a couple really quality rodeo rides in there, with spins and cartwheels. The big thing for this trip is that Greg finally figured out how to nail a loop--essentially, an airborne forward somersault. He was grinning like a 5 year old and couldn't stop talking about how cool it felt! After several hours here, we continued down the river to the final big rapid: S-turn. I've heard about this one: huge waves, but very, very shallow with sharp rocks: a cheese grater, if you will. It's a thou shalt not swim kinda place. Greg told me I could portage, but I felt good about myself that day, and Greg agreed with the assessment. So, I followed him into this exploding minefield of waves and holes. I could see the end, and had made it past the big, hairy, scary hole when it happened: I shot up the face of steep wave, didn't have my paddle in a good brace, and I flipped. Yes, the river is that shallow. I was smacking rocks right and left at a high rate of speed. All I could think was "keep tucked" and "swimming is worse than bad." So I tried rolling. No dice. Again. Nope. OK, this is getting bad. Again, Again. It was just so violent up there, and I was tentative because I didn't want to expose myself too much to the rocks. Finally, I made it up. Relief. I made it out of the rapid to meet Greg at the bottom. He was absolutely convinced I was going to swim, but I stuck with it. I was missing a chunk of flesh from my right hand, and had a pretty gouge in my helmet, but I made it. We finished the last rapid, a Class III+, without any drama. We hopped out and ran into Errol, 35 miles away, to try to meet Sam who was coming up from Boston. We missed him, and elected to camp with the guys from NH we ran shuttle with, instead of the two cute girls who were tearing it up at Smooth Ledge and offered Greg and I a place in their campsite (full disclosure: one was a friend of Greg's and they had talked ahead of time. This was all a surprise to me, and I thought we had just been randomly approached.) The guys from NH were super nice and generous with their extra food, and told great stories. We really liked the campsite there--it was only $10 per night, and the facilities were very, very nice. I think it was called Clear Stream Campground, just west of the main intersection in town. We all headed off to sleep early. Next morning, we packed up to do it again. This time, we paddled across the lake instead of taking that nasty trail. The rapids were still a blast. There was a bit more water today, making it ever so slightly bigger. Smooth Ledge was fun again, although the hole wasn't as nice. I was getting into it much better, and even was able to start moving around and doing basic things in the hole. I'm getting there. Greg was still going strong. After a few hours, we headed down. I portaged S-turn because I wasn't feeling as on top of it, and then we finished things out and headed back to Boston around 4 or so. Wow, what a trip. Greg and I are going to hit it again in a few weeks, along with the Kennebec and the Dead. It should be all kinds of awesome! |