TR: The Gift
 

End of December, temperatures in the 40s, most of the snow gone, winds
light, hot sun, blue skies, the Shepaug discharging about 5 or 6 times its
average flow. What better thing to do with a day that to be on the river?

It took some doing to find everything in garage, basement, and closets, and
to get the poles off the wall in the living room, but waiting for the sun to
do its work was a good thing too.

By ten, I had the Explorer on the van and everything else inside. I didn't
get to the put-in until 11. There were a few cars parked there - all hikers
evidently. On the way over, going past other put-ins, I saw no cars with
boats. Not even racks. Hard to figure. I suppose the hard core yakkers
went to the big playspots. At least I hope they did. I hope they didn't
stay in to watch the playoffs.

Going up the Shepaug from Bee Brook into Hidden Valley is (IMHO) one of the
grand trips you can do in the northeast. At 135cfs, that section starts to
edge toward three-ish, with the haystacks starting to get deep and turn back
on themselves. Of more interest for uptripping, a lot of the eddies get
washed out, and the ones that remain get really pushy, squirrely exits. Icy
boulders made lining out of the question through the worst sections, so it
was all brute force poling or ferrying through the haystacks to try to
attain an eddy on the far side.

I lost it a couple of times, lost big distance recovering, but miraculously
stayed dry. I could only manage an hour of it, at which point I started to
have a hard time gripping the pole.

On the way back down, I ran into a sweeper, a 3" hemlock hanging out into
the channel, catching it square in the gut. It knocked the boat broadside
and me on my back on the aft floatation. The upstream gunnel was submerged
when I recovered enough to assess the situation and figure out something
useful to do. Somehow the pole ended up athwartships with purchase
upstream, and I was able to right the boat leaning on that. More lean and I
was able to stand up. Wheew!

Of COURSE I marked that sweeper on the way up. It was hard to miss such an
ugly and obvious hazard, but somehow I still managed to get swept into it.
Another of the river's mysteries. Brain fade.

Back in the sun near the put-in, I played in the easy eddies for as long as
it took for me to get my confidence and self respect back. That took a
l-o-n-g time.

Last of the Christmas duck with red cabbage tonight. Tingly-tired. Thanks
Santa. Can we do it again next weekend?

Cheers,
Fred Klingener