We had 11 paddlers join us for our July 3rd run from the Old Angler's Inn put in on the Potomac River down to the Lock 10 take out. We had 7 people in kayaks and 4 people in 3 rafts. The water level was at 2.79 ft / 1900 cfs at the time we took the boats out, according to the Little Falls gage. The group consisted of Barb Brown; Alf Cooley; Laura Thompson; Logan Hoffman; Miki Komlosh, Marty Lizak, and their daughter Kayden; Adam Issenberg, his wife Wyndy Rausenberger, and their guest Joel Caplan; and myself. We launched very close to our target time of 6:30 PM and arrived at Lock 10 just as the sun was setting, giving us about 2 ½ hours of time on the river. This week we bypassed the Offutt rapids since that channel was almost impassable last week (at about the same water level) and proceeded river right down the Teacups side of the island. Yellow Falls and Stubblefield Falls still gave us plenty of action, and multiple opportunities to play around. We did have one small incident at Stubblefield Falls where one of the rafts was caught in a hole, resulting in one swimmer. Luckily, we had experienced paddlers near the incident and the swimmer was safely returned to the raft. Once again, the entrance to the Lock 10 channel approaching the take out was pretty shallow, so most of us had to get out of our boats and drag them to the take out. On this trip we were more cognizant of the time it takes to get from Stubblefield Falls to the take out, but once again, the sun was already setting as we approached the takeout.
One benefit of an evening paddle is the beauty of the Potomac scenery in the late afternoon light. It’s hard to beat those views, and even harder to believe that this is all right in our own backyard.
Submitted by
Dean Hawes