The Vermont Paddlers Club

This year's novice clinic was a great time for everyone involved. We were fortunate to have good water levels, great weather, a very strong group of students, and as always great instructors and helpers.

Saturday started as usual with at the Waterbury reservoir. We flew through the flat water portion since everyone involved had a lot of flat water kayaking experience and many had been on moving water. As they have for many years, Eric Bishop and Barbara Frankowski set up lunch for us where we did the moving water / safety talk . We moved to the Middle Mad for the afternoon where we had a low but fluid level of 300cfs - definitely enough water for first day novice clinic. We had a couple of close calls but ultimately no swims which is a first for me with Novice Clinic.

Since we had such a strong group with a successful Saturday run we decided to do the Lower Mad at 250 cfs for the Sunday portion. Everyone had great runs down the first 2 rapids and since it was hot day we had the opportunity to do swim and rope rescue practice at the last drop above 100B. When we got to Horseshoe we offered the more advanced students to put into the pool on the left side and run that drop. To our surprise, everyone ended up running it with only 1 swim with a quick rescue. We proceeded to the take out on the Winooski where Barb and Eric once again met us with lunch.

A few people needed to peel out but several of us took a second run. A fine finish to a great weekend.