A couple of us decided to run the Green Gorge after we heard reports that the problem logs had been cleared out with the recent high water.
The flow was around 1100 cfs when I left my house for this run, but we got lucky and the flow came up to around 1400 cfs before we got on the river. We put in just above Ledge Drop 1, and got ourselves into the flow. There was a log on the left of Ledge Drop 2, which forced me to go right of my usual run. I smacked into a rock and ended up swimming the tail end of the rapid, but that was no big deal.
We made our way down through the early class III section. Just before Mercury, my paddling partner said he wanted to see my run through Mercury. This resulted in me getting a bit self-conscious about it, and I went too far left. Before I could get back over, I got very friendly with another rock. In this swim, I let go of my paddle. When I got to the side and was ready to hop back in my boat, we saw the paddle going downstream. My friend got out the spare paddle, and we headed through the Nozzle. As I ran the next section, I started thinking about whether I would replace the paddle now, or just use one of my backup paddles. I also thought it would be a good idea for me to get back into the habit of carrying my own spare. Luckily, my friend found my paddle, so I didn't need to worry about the first part.
The rest of the run was easy, though we were wary of new wood. It was also considerably colder as we exited the gorge. Such is the way of the Green.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment