Shoulder seasons are always rough on me. 

Temperatures usually aren't ideal for any of the things I really enjoy, and the weather tends to do some wacky things. In my last post I mentioned that there was a foot of snow in the southern Adirondacks. Although I can't confirm, I wouldn't be surprised if they had bare ground now... we certainly do up north. 

For the past few weeks, the weather has been in a holding patter of "chilly gloom." It's been rainy and cold, but not rainy enough to bring any rivers up, and not cold enough for that rain to turn to snow. Such things do not bode well for a kayaker and snowboarding enthusiast. So I made the most of what I had to work with.

Dec. 3, 2011

Ed Moorhead (of Demjoez fame) rallied the troops to make a modern descent of the upper upper (upper upper) Black River.

This is a section I've been wanting to do for a while, but with horror stories of flatwater mixed with huge unrunnable rapids and a suggested flow that would have other high quality runs going for sure, it was always difficult to get a crew together.

The last time we had heard of anyone paddling this stretch was in the late 90s (AKA back in the day!) and the first descent party was driven half crazy by several miles of flatwater. Some never recovered...

Acme Mapper, a critical tool for internet scouting, gave us a pretty good idea of where the big rapids started, so after an early (we're talking pre-sunrise) drive to the takeout, we decided to hike in a short ways just above the good stuff. The only problem was that the good stuff might not even be good, it could just be a waste of gradient, since not one of the original explorers decided to give them a go.

We hiked in from a pull off on the right side of the road 2-3 miles south of North Lake. By the time we got to the river, we had forgotten the cold and began eagerly paddling downstream.

The slide was pretty straightforward and a ton of fun, with a great lead in rapid and an equally great boulder garden right after. The only concern I would have is the hole at the bottom with more water (which would greatly improve the rest of the river). It looks like it could get pretty sticky, and it's backed up by a rock on the left. Definitely worth a scout if you find yourself on this river.

With a great section behind us, we were eager to see what else the river would toss up, but relatively small rapids made up the majority of the river. After several miles of class II boogie, we floated past the Farr Rd. Bridge, the typical take out for section 1 of the Black.

Section 2 stretches for 8 miles of meandering class I and II.

Not quite what we were hoping for, but some paddling is better than no paddling. At about the halfway point, the sun was getting distinctly lower in the sky, and we doubled out pace til the Enos Rd. Bridge, the take out for Section 2 and put in for Section 3.

Here, the river picks back up again, starting with some class III leading into a rather large horizon line. Ed had told me there was a good rapid just after the bridge, but I wasn't anticipating something quite this big. Best Judgement took over once again, and I dropped in blind.

The cascade was great! I started center and moved left and back to right to pick my way down. It's probably easiest to just scout from the bridge, that way you can just stick right down the biggest and most fluid section. Ed say's the rapid just gets better with more water!

With high hopes for Section 3, we rounded the bend in classic class III whitewater and were greeted with... more flatwater. A few riffles here and there led to Crandalls Falls, a fun slide, and our take out. 

The whole trip was ~14 miles and took something like 6 hours with a lunch stop.

Overall, the top 3 sections of the Black are worth a trip if it's warm and you're more interested in great scenery (and probably fishing, too) than whitewater. It's an interesting area because most paddlers capable of paddling all the rapids will likely go elsewhere because of the flatwater, but most class II-III paddlers may have trouble getting out before the bigger rapids. It's a beautiful section of river though, and everything is portageable, so the best option I can give you is to check it out above 1100 cfs, and go with someone capable of boat scouting class III+.

Dec. 4, 2011

Since no one really wanted to put their slightly damp dry gear back on after such a long day, I opted for the always classic hike to Gleasman's Falls. Naturally, this hike served as an opportunity to correlate flows with the gauge far downstream and as a final scout. Newfound comrade and expert novel editor, Cody Updike joined in.

Everything looked runnable and fun that day except the top drop, which definitely needed more water. Fortunately, it looks like everything except the two holes in the above photo would just get better with more water. The Donnattsburg Gauge on the Independence read about 180 cfs that day, but I think flows closer to 300 would be ideal. Keep in mind, the gauge is located several miles downstream, after many tributaries come in.

After a short fire and a walk out in near darkness, the excitement of my weekend was replaced with ramblings of half sane professors and the completion of my Non-Western Lit class. Check out the melodramatic short I made as an interpretation of T'ao Ch'ien's The Peach Blossom Spring!

To wrap all of this up, I'd like to say that the snow must have heard me. In the time it took me to write this post, close to an inch has fallen with no signs of letting up. This is good news, because it's supposed to warm up on Monday, and I've found quite a few rivers to check out with a new web based tool called usgs streamstats.

It's fairly user friendly program, but I'll leave you with a few tips.

Seriously, check this program out! You won't be disappointed!

Best of luck to all during the difficult, rainless times of the shoulder seasons!