| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-08-27 23:13:38 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
Rafting the Deerfield River, Dryway Section August 26, 2006 People: Greg Wallace, Darrel Robertson, Amy Robertson, Chris Glazner, Martin Jaspan, Kris Holton, Anna Sommer, Frank Schubert, Somin Lee , Alan Gurtan Trip Report: Greg sent out the call for rafters, and the usual horde of folks jumped in line. After a lottery to pick the paddlers, we met up at the MITOC boathouse at 7AM sharp (-ish). After grabbing PFDs, paddles, helmets, rafts and pumps, we fit into three cars for the 2.5 hour trip out to the Deerfield River. Upon arrival we found the Monroe Bridge dam swamped with folks in all sorts of whitewater boats, since the Deerfield is the only Class IV river that flows in the late summer, thanks to a negotiated dam release. We pumped up the rafts by hand (the reason the trip is only $20 is because we make you pump up the rafts!), and set the cars to run shuttle. We were able to squeeze in on the river just before a large group of commercial rafters took off. Greg and Darrell were our two most experienced guides, with Chris and Martin serving as their apprentices (neither had guided Class IV before). We headed off first down Factory Rapid, right from the get go. Greg's raft sailed through, while Darrel's raft wanted to meet a nice rock first, allowing Anna to get adjusted to the temperature of the water (which wasn't that cold). Once all back inside, we paddled through some nice wave trains, standing waves and holes while getting the hand of eddying out and precisely maneuvering around in our smaller rafts, while Greg and Darrel pointed out the lines and gave advice to the guides-in-training. The first run for both rafts was really exciting. Both rafts nailed quite a few rocks, and got hung up a time or two (the release was on the low side). Darrel's raft expertly negotiated Dragon's Tooth rapid while spinning cartwheels through it :) At one point, Greg's raft flipped, spilling its crew. Greg got the raft back up quickly, and got most of his folks back in before the rapid was done. We bucked around, spun around, got wet, and had a fantastic time. We eddied out and scouted the last couple rapids, Dragon's Tooth and Labyrinth. We watched each other run it, and then made our way to the take out. We grabbed the cars, and threw both rafts on top of Martin's Jetta (!) and then drove back for a second run down the river (extra bonus!) We ate our lunches while we waited for the cars to shuttle back into place. For the second run, Martin and Chris would be guiding the rafts, with Greg and Darrel close by. Much to the amusement of the paddlers, the second run went smoother than the first, avoiding more rocks and running a little cleaner lines. Some might attribute that to running the river a second it after getting a good, close look at it; others might say Martin and Chris were concentrating like mad not to screw up in front of everyone :) We again eddied out in front of the hardest rapids, Dragon's Tooth and Labyrinth, so we could get a good, close look at it and carefully pick our lines. Both rafts ran them cleanly. Chris' raft decided to surf a pourover for a little bit, then ran down the rest of Labyrinth while Chris sang Kiowa War Journey songs at full volume. We both eddied out at the bottom of Labyrinth, then we got out and hiked upstream to watch a kayaker extricate his pinned kayak, and then had an impromptu whitewater swimming lesson as the water from the dam release dwindled off and the river calmed down. We were the last folks off the river. We carried up our rafts, deflated them, packed up, dried off, and then headed to the Friendly's in Greenfield for dinner before getting back to Boston around 9pm, totally exhausted. We all had a great time. It was good getting to know each other pretty well, work together to get down the river, then do it all over again. I personally think we had the most fun of anyone on the river that day! |