We had 9 paddlers join us for our standard run from the Old Angler’s Inn put-in on the Potomac River down to the Lock 10 take-out. The water level was at the 2.75 foot mark, and the discharge was approximately 1,850 cfs. The group consisted of Tina Schneider, Hugh Powell, Eric Nepomuceno, “Mac” McDonald, John Hennessy, Greg Landrigan, Stefan Eigen, Dominique Troost, and me. For this strip we must give a special shout out to Alf Cooley who was generous enough to come out and help us shuttle boats with his car, even though he was not able to join with us on the water. We raised our paddles to Alf at the start of the run.
We launched very close to our target time of 6:00 PM, and even though we started 30 minutes earlier this week, we still arrived at the Lock 10 take-out a bit after 8:30 PM, well after dark.
This week we were able to work our way through the channel on the left side of Offutt Island even with the low water level. There was a little bit of flow coming out of the channel but not the wave train we normally look forward to. As always, we were able to enjoy plenty of play time around Yellow Falls and Stubblefield Falls. And once again we had plenty of opportunities to practice some surfing, ferrying, and some cool-off rolls. We had two swims at Yellow Falls one of which I will take credit for. The other nice thing about this trip is that we met five new paddlers, that I hope we can convince to continue joining us.
As a follow up to last week's report, the Cabin John Rescue Squad (whom we notified) have started to remove the tree that blocks the beach at the Lock 10 take out. The main trunk has been removed but the top part of the tree is still in the middle of the channel, but we had plenty of room to approach the beach.
This trip established that we are simply not capable of finishing before sunset, even when we start 30 minutes earlier :-). I think it’s because we just have too much goofing off out there. Now that the days are starting to get shorter, these trips may be modified in the near future to account for the shorter day-light time, possibly evolving into play time in the Chutes. We will take one week at a time and see how things play out.
The group playing in Yellow Falls
John Hennessy eying up the approach to Yellow Falls
Submitted by
Dean Hawes