The Vermont Paddlers Club

The Little river had been running higher than normal and I had been scouting the infamous weir for the past couple of days. American Whitewater lists it as "unrunnable". However, I was convinced it could be done at this level, 1600 cfs. I posted a couple of pictures on the VPC website showing a tongue on river right that goes around the nasty low head dam portion. Speaking of which, a few more hundred cfs and that nasty dam MIGHT just become a really sweet play hole! That will have to wait for another day, as that didn't look to be the case yet.

Chris and I scouted the weir and decided to give it a go. However, we decided to go up river a bit for a warm up and put in just below the big dam forming the Little River Reservoir. The spill gates were wide open up top resulting in an impressive waterfall over the rocks before hitting the bottom and adding to the high flow in the river. I was first to put in and decided to paddle upstream a bit while Chris was getting ready. I must have been out of sight when Chris put in because he was nowhere to been seen when I floated back down. My guess was that he assumed I went downstream while waiting for him. So, I heading down hoping that was the case. We finally caught back up just above the weir. Not a good start, but we decided to keep on after taking one last look at the weir.

We were both comfortable that the low head dam wouldn't be an issue. The tongue was big and clearly defined. At a normal summer release level, the tongue isn't really there in enough force. But it appeared to be a clean sneak at 1600 cfs. The bigger issue was that there were some nasty hydraulics forming on river right along the gorge walls. The move seemed to be to take the tongue on the right and move to the center immediately after the weir. There were two big waves that had to be punched after this. This was where the real action was going to be, but was beyond the most dangerous parts. After that, it was a big turbulent flush down the gorge.

I had brought my playboat in hopes that there would be some great play wave down river at this level. I was second guessing that decision at this point and would have much rather have had my bigger boat to punch those two waves that were coming up. Too late now. I was the first to go. The tongue got me around the weir just as expected, and I was on line when I crashed the first wave. It knocked me off balance a bit and the second wave came up a just a second or two later. I'd like to say I decided to go for style points and intentionally did a stern squirt, but the truth is that just sort of happened on it's own. I somehow managed to get my bow back down without flipping. I was against the gorge wall at this point and quickly paddled back to the center and on down the rest of the gorge. I caught a glimpse of Chris coming down. He was smart enough to bring a bigger volume boat and made it down clean right behind me.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. The great play wave that I had hoped for, never appeared. Should have taken the big boat. Next time the water is this high, I'll know. Definitely, would do it again. However, the level has to be right. American Whitewater is probably right in that this is unrunnable, or at least shouldn't be run, at normal release levels.