The Vermont Paddlers Club

It's always nice to open the season on something other than the Lower Mad. Nothing wrong with the Mad - but by mid May it gets a little long in the tooth. So having the opportunity to poke down a rarely run Micro in the Dog River drainage was a treat.

Stony is an ideal intro to Creeking/getting wet again after a long winter of skiing...run.

The Dog was at about 800 and dropping - I had never run Stony that low, in fact I had never even looked at Stony when the Dog was below 1200, but we were all game and decided to get out there and give it a go.

It was surprisingly boatable. The run is approximately 7 miles long and is a full on gem with a bunch of different drops and distinct rapids that really break the run into three sections. The upper is very tight and is more or less a mini gorge, The middle has some boulder type rapids and the bottom is predominantly a ledge style creek.

We all had a great run and were chasing daylight to the take out - The last drop called Junior's House is a total blast and was slightly constricted due to some residual ice and snow still along the banks. We all ran different lines but they all went - Alden smoothing it out and mine with way too much of a boof....

I am willing it will be draining the Northfield Mountains for at least another week - go get after it folks. There are three specific pieces of wood to be warry of...... So be on your toes.

Cheers...