22-Apr-2007

Lower Head and Washago Black all in one day.

Water Level: 8.268 on Washago Black gauge

This report will be shorter than my previous ones as I am tired, sore, and almost falling asleep but I had to get it done or the others would have called me a slacker.

Well today the weather was frickin hot. We did two rivers trips in one day.

The open boaters in the group were Ryan who drove down from North Bay, Derek, Neil and myself.

The lonely kayaker in the group was Val … wait a minute I stand corrected … Val does not like to be referred to as the lonely kayaker as he stated he wasn’t lonely. He is now to be known as the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick (boat) Tonto.

We all met at Timmy Who’s and were on the water by 10am. We paddled up to Stone Wall rapids and worked it pretty hard as we were slowly going down the down the river.

We had a blast at the second chute below Husky Rapids. We were there for a while running the chute at different angles, surfing, and ferrying like mad. We had a great run down the rest of the river.

It was about 1pm by the time we were done and we were hungry. I made damn sure I paid Neil the 5 bucks I owed him for a previously made bet. We basically had a pigfest at Timmy Who’s. Between the five of us we had 6 fruit tarts, 6 butter tarts, feta cheese stuff hot peppers, 2 types of stuffed olives, and a big loaf of bread. Two of the guys still managed to put down sandwiches on top of that. I also had a small sandwich that I brought with me. All I can say is if you have never had the stuffed peppers or olives … try them … they are excellent.

We then head over to the Washago Black. I have never seen so many vehicles at the take out before … hmmmm …. Must be that the fair weather paddlers are back!

Neil decided to launch off the steep hill below the guard rail. He did not swim but he did take on a boat load of water when he played submarine. I offered him 20 bucks to seal launch of the bridge but he wimped out.

We had fun at baby ender. If was nice to see that the big chunk of the fallen tree was missing.

The surf wave above the lunch rock was fun.

Everyone ran Bell Ringer … some more than others. We also ran log splitter at the bottom of the middle channel. After that we headed down around the corner towards Pinkies … we finally caught up to some other boaters. I said hello to some OC1 boater chicks and kayaker chick on the way down to Pinkies. Most of us caught the first eddy on the right below the first wave. We did not even hit the local guy smoking pot and doing his dishes in the river. The Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto had excellent surf time in on the second wave back.

After that is was off to the takeout. It was 5pm by the time we had the boats one their respective vehicles and changed. Everyone said that had a great day on the rivers. All I can say is that I will have no problem sleeping tonight.

Next weekend should be a blast as we are heading over to the Middle Mad. My trip report for next weekend will be delayed by at least a week as I will be also be up watching the 2007 Worlds at the Ottawa River cheering on my fellow RiverJunkie team mate Jenny-RightSide as she will most likely be competing in the SquirtBoat competition. And also due to the fact my dad is on frickin dialup. He would prefer high speed but the only problem is it ends on the road behind him.

We took 170 pictures on the Lower Head and 205 on the Washago Black. And I managed to be in some of them. It’s nice to have others that know how to use a digital SLR camera. I will leave the pictures up for a couple of weeks.

Lower Head pictures:

Click here for Lower Head pictures

Washago Black pictures:

Click here for Washago Black pictures

p.s. Greg … all I can say is you missed a great day. Hope to see you next weekend.