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The Jazz Festival Float
Sunday June 8th, 2003Organizer: Andy Meilleur
Predominantly: int-adv WW
Water Level: medium
Author: Jamie Dolan
Internet Gauge (ft): 4.5
USGS Gauge Name: North Creek
Kayakers (K1): Jamie Dolan
Canoers (OC1): Andy Meilleur, Merle Schloff
This bootleg Hudson River gorge trip was put together on the streets of Burlington during the jazz festival. How Andy managed to play on the river as much as he did after so much time at the festival is not known. But of course he did. The trip was a healthy 7.5 hours long. Fortunately, the weather was wonderful and the black flies weren't even that bad.
We started out on the Indian before the release (USGS reporting 4.2 ft. @ North
Creek). We caught the river high enough so we did not drag anywhere. But what a difference the release makes. Instead of high volume water, big waves and holes we found a relatively technical river. At this level it is a lot of fun with some relatively easy surfing waves and plenty of rocks to avoid. We were lucky that it wasn't much lower otherwise we would be dragging.
Eventually the bubble caught up to us raising the level of the Hudson to just over 4.5 feet. A comfortable level to be sure. We had the river to ourselves pretty much up to the Narrows when the few rafts on the river started coming through.
There were only about dozen compared to close to forty or so I saw two weeks before.
Andy managed to hit most play spots on the way down while Merle conserved his energy in anticipation of the long run out after bus stop. We had the rare opportunity to see Andy swim. He was playing at the bottom of Harris when his off side brace didn't come up to snuff. Andy went over and enjoyed the Hudson from a different perspective.
After looking over bus stop I decided the level was benign enough that I could play in it. Well I did for about 30 seconds until I was flipped on a back surf.
Not a big deal but when I went over I slapped my paddle down to try to brace.
The brace quickly failed because a paddle blade broke off. Though I had no blade
I did have my wits and was able to roll using the other blade. Merle came to the rescue by tying off his spare paddle to my remaining paddle so I could have a much easier paddle out.
As the day wound down the bubble had passed us by. However, the level was high enough that there was no boat dragging. And that's always a good thing after a long day on the Hudson.