The Vermont Paddlers Club

The second week of April brought our first good round of true spring snowmelt.  On the afternoon of the 11th folks were planning to hit Ridley.  I wasn't too bitter about being stuck at work since I was pretty sure it'd be too high.  But that means Cobb would be good and Scott was game to meet me there for an evening run.  Of course this had me a little nervous - I think Cobb is sweet and all, but it's short - and Scott has run a lot of creeks in Vermont and had high standards.  So I hoped he'd think the drive was worth it and headed for the takeout.

You can drop into Cobb from up top on Trapp Road, but I usually hike up river left from the bottom.  The first few ledges you'll see aren't especially stacked but they look good, and Scott indicated he agreed.  Then the gradient really takes off and by then I think Scott was pretty much sold.  I think all total the creek drops around 200 feet in about a half mile.

I usually put in just a little ways below the primary confluence.  You can go higher up but it gets pretty small pretty quick and is fairly dechannelized up there.  Below the confluence, you get a few hundred feet of warm-up before the gradient really starts.  It's all steep bedrock, pretty clean and well channelized, with enough (but just barely enough) eddies.  

There is one marginal rapid here where you have to drive right across a shallow slide to avoid falling into a menacing crack.  It looks like you'd still go through if you missed the line, but let's just say the Republican health care plan wouldn't pay to have your arms screwed back onto your shoulders.

There are a few other big drops down here too - one big chunky ledge where I landed in a pothole sideways and Scott briefly disappeared into a boat-width bedrock trough, another one that has a flake that could be a piton or could be a boof (hint - it's a great boof), and one final double drop with a surprisingly strong hole for a creek this small.  Other than that there are a whole bunch of great small slides, ledge staircases and even one or two boulder gardens. Most of the drops aren't more than 5 feet tall, but most of them aren't more than 5 or 10 feet apart!

We hit the takeout right before it got too dark to paddle.  I love timing a run like that!