Sunday, April 1, 2007

Lower Head River

01-Apr-2007

Water Level: 8.92 on Washago Black gauge

Well today was a stellar day. This was my first trip on the Lower Head after ice out.

Everyone made sure they stopped in at Timmy Who's to get permission to use the put in across the road. I pre-ordered my fruit tarts for desert at home.

There were three different groups of paddlers that showed up at the same time. Alot of the paddlers had never been there before.

The fleet consisted of 13 boats in total 5 kayakers, 5 OC1 ... 6 if you count Dan's After shock, 1 OC2, and Martin in is Shaggy C1.

Martin, Ozzie, and Gilles in group 1.

Maureen, Janice, Jim, Peter, and Mark in group 2.

Derek, Neal, Dan, Louis, Walt (I think), and myself.

The weather was overcast and of course it always rains at the putin and takeout. The level was probably the highest I ever paddled it. There was lots of play and fun.

Dan knows this is going to be posted so here goes for his stellar move of the day. He was carrying back up on river left of the second chute below Husky Rapids. All of a sudden you her a big crash into the water. It was Dan's boat without Dan. Turns out a tree branch supposedly got him in the eye. I was laughing and taking pictures of his empty boat running down the river by itself. He eveventually jumped in to swim for it (luckily he has a full drysuit) and only after making sure I had enough pics ... I chased down river after his boat.



There were a couple of other swimmers but at least they were paddling in their boats at the time and it doesn't really count as nobody took any pictures of them.

There were ice shelves at triple drop. Everyone made it down rightside up.

Dan's other stellar move was at the bottom of triple drop. He was trying to get out of his boat and ended up swimming. Before he said don't take a pick .... too late ... and then the next words out of his mouth were I guess your posting that on the BoatWerks as well .... yep.

Everyone agreed they had a great day. It would have been nice to have a little bit of sunshine but hey we were out paddling.

Everyone stopped in at Timmy Who's on the way out to buy goodies and gifts.

Link to pictures