The Vermont Paddlers Club

75 Degrees, Lots of water everywhere. What do you do. Of course - go to the NBW drainage and hope you can find it at a really fun fluffy level. The emails, phone and texts were insane by lunch time so it was evident everyone else had the same idea.

I raced out of work and headed home to grab my gear and get up route 12 to see what The Last Drop looked like. It was absolutely DISGUSTING to look at and gave me the willies just watching the water folding over on it's self at the lip and the hole at the bottom looked like it could eat Tokyo! None of us wanted anything to do with that today. So we decided to head back toward Montpelier and grab my standard pre-work run at a really MEATY level. We looked at Martin's and the lines were stomping. So we drove up and checked out one of it's tribs, Patterson to see it was stomping as well. But seemed to be a little less angry. So we set shuttle and loaded up our gear and headed up to the put in to get in a quick run so we didn't get skunked on a day when there is so much water around to be had.

At the put in a solid crew of the UVM crowd pulled up and they hopped in behind us. Mainer, Rogan, Tom, Clay and Noah thought our idea of running Patterson was a pretty good one too..... A lot of boaters on a tiny little creek that was dishing up some fantastic flow.

I lead off down and around the bend to the first reasonable eddy. The Bob Sled Run was doing a good job of serving up some fun lines. Once your reflexes caught up to the speed at which you were moving, it became apparent that this was going to be a ton of fun! Eddies were abundant and nothing was overly retentive.

About a 1/3 into the run I rounded an abrupt right hand turn and heard a sickening noise from the hull of my kayak....something akin to a nail being drug across plate glass. 30 seconds later I was sitting about 4 inches lower in the river and having a hard time maneuvering my boat. I grabbed the nearest eddy and hopped out to see that my boat was filled to the brim with water - I also had an unobscured view of the river through the bottom of my kayak. I had put a nasty jagged 18" long crack in the bottom of my boat. BUMMER. I was done for the day. However the rest of the crew finished off their run and the UVM boys and Hugh headed on down to the bottom of Martin's to the Take out at Shady Rill.

The VT Bob Sled Run is a treat to find with that much water in it! As bummed as I was about my boat - the company was good and the beers were pretty splendid too at the take out. Unbelievable that the UVM crew were sporting something other than Mountain Brew. Well done Clay!

As for the tired old Mystic - back to the barn and I've got a new challenge for my plastic welding skills..... UGH!