Several days of intermittent storms across a broad area left the Thursday Paddlers coordinator (not me) with a tough call to make as Wednesday, June 18 drew to a close, with many desirable runs still in play but without much guarantee of what conditions would be like at put-in time Thursday. Most potential participants seemed to favor staying relatively local, with the result that a proposed trip to Moorefield Canyon (possibly diverting to the Lost if running) gave way to a trip to the Patapsco.
As I became Patapsco CBD (i.e., Coordinator by Default), I was confident going to sleep Wednesday night that we'd have a fine level, only to awake Thursday morning to a precipitous gage drop. Tough Thursday Paddlers call, Part 2. We forged ahead and were rewarded with a level that held nicely throughout the day, starting the run at 347 cfs on the Hollofield gage and finishing it 3+ hours later at 381 on the Catonsville gage. Moral of the story: sometimes you get skunked, and sometimes you get lucky, so don't blame the coordinator for the former and applaud the coordinator for the latter. (Same idea goes for the weather.)
Patapsco aficionados take note of those cfs numbers. The Hollofield gage (located at the put-in) is a good predictor of what you'll experience on the first third of the run, but the Catonsville gage (located downstream at the Ilchester bridge) is a better predictor of what you'll experience on the other two-thirds. Given tributaries and drainage into the river along the way, you typically gain flow as you progress downstream. In other words, even if the Hollofield gage is dropping, you might be OK, as all the Class III rapids are in the lower two-thirds. Hollofield was always my go-to gage; now I make sure to consider Catonsville as well.
But I digress! We had 11 paddlers (remember that number) willing to take the gamble on those morning numbers: kayakers Ken Cohen, Hildy Ferraiolo, Sarah Kellett, Sarah's friend Stefanie, Miki Komlosh, Sergey Grinkrug, Christian Lowe, Scott Newlon, Virginia Del Rosario, Gary Steinberg, and CBD OC-1 Larry Lempert. Suicide was a little rocky, making it more challenging than at moderately higher levels despite being less pushy; the delightful no-more-Bloede-Dam rapid was not pushy and was great fun. It's striking to think how many years I paddled the Patapsco without having the benefit of this rapid that resulted from removal of the dam in 2018; with all its bends, it's almost three-quarters of a river mile long!
Mother Nature was kind to us by holding off on a monster downpour until we were off the river and most of us were on our way. Another note (seemingly obvious but your CBD forgot to take it into account): the long shuttle, because it's on major highways, can take even longer if your paddling day edges into rush hour!
And there's one more moral to this story. Once upon a time on Hopeville Canyon, one paddler unannouncedly went right when everyone else went left around a seemingly little island. He beat us to the end of the island, thought we were ahead of him, and you can imagine the delay and worry that resulted as he looked for us downstream and we looked for him upstream. Fast forward to our Patapsco trip. Often, especially with a large group, everyone gets on the water and you gather up in a convenient eddy below. Well, there's a seemingly little island at the Hollofield put-in. The group gathered up in the first convenient eddy to the right of the island, counted paddlers, and was justifiably concerned when we only got to 10. Happily we reunited with #11 a ways below the island; unbeknownst to us, he'd started slightly ahead to the left of the island. A duh! moment for the CBD: keep an eye out and make sure everyone starts together (and beware of islands)!