Near Fairplay, PA, Feb. 21, 11:00 a.m.—As Mark drove across the Emmitsburg Road bridge, he glanced down to get a visual on the water level of the Pennsylvania creek that we'd come to paddle—and observed white as far as he could see, upstream and downstream, looking somewhat like the Arctic. "Uh-oh," he exclaimed (except he used a different four-letter word), "Is that all ice?"
Marsh Creek, a favorite of ours just over the Mason Dixon line coming from Maryland, joins Pennsylvania's Rock Creek to form the Monocacy River. Marsh doesn't run often, and when it does, it typically drops fast. Mark Brenneman, Peter Ryan, and I dithered early that Saturday morning and determined that Marsh was our best option given that another target, the Patapsco, had disappointed us (for the 50th time) by dropping from excellent to minimal overnight, while our other targets were too high. Marsh can also rise fast, as astute readers of the Cruiser will remember from a suspenseful account of a higher-than-expected run (see "Anatomy of a Swim," Cruiser, Nov.-Dec. 2025). But on this day, too low rather than too high was our fear as we headed there. What we didn't fear, because we didn't expect it, was impassable shore-to-shore ice, as we'd had lots of (relatively speaking) warm days since the big freeze that started Jan. 18.
Marsh has a two-foot weir (often runnable on the left) near the beginning of the normal run and a 5-foot dam near the end (not runnable by most mortals due to lack of a safe route, although the Ettinger guidebook notes a chute in the middle "for kamikaze types"). The weir and dam, it turns out, were enough to create slack water that had frozen solid. Actually, "solid" doesn't adequately convey what confronted us. The blockages consisted of slabs three feet or more thick that locked together or piled up on one another. These conditions didn't rule out a run, however, because all of Marsh's whitewater is in the middle—about 2 miles usually offering very entertaining, technical Class II-III rapids after substantial-enough rain. This section was running between the seas of ice at the beginning and end.
The problem was river access. The standard put-in has a fine pull-out at the Cunningham Road bridge. The standard takeout is a not-so-fine muddy exit with brambles, as close as you can get to the Mason Dixon Road bridge to avoid stepping on an unfriendly landowner's property. Mason Dixon Road itself offers a small area that, liberally construed, could be described as parking for two or three cars (or less liberally as a broad shoulder). But Marsh's frozen sections ruled out both of these standard access points.
For putting in, we were able to switch to a small clearing off Marsh Creek Road about a third of a mile downstream from the weir, a spot we'd used before with a friendly OK from the residents of a house across the road. We left my car and canoe there and went to explore our takeout options down the road.
It didn't take long to determine that the ice a hundred or so yards before the dam marked a definitive end of the line. That point coincided with what used to be a valid takeout on river left, where a bridge once crossed the river and an ample paved area remains at a sharp turn in the road. In fact, it's the advised takeout in Ettinger's 2013 guide, but parking has been prominently banned there since then. We ascertained that it would be possible here to scrabble our way off the river and through a wild wooded patch to a spot alongside the road, with enough of a roadside verge to legally leave a vehicle.
As we laid our plan, a pleasant resident from up the road walked over, and we talked a while. He declined (pleasantly) to let us park on his land, fearing liability, he said, if we happened to get hurt. We ended the conversation without a clear idea of who owned the exact spot where we would step out of our boats, but this gentleman seemed to convey that he didn't think it would be a problem. He did say something to effect of the owner not being around but if he did show up and reached into his pocket, we ought not to argue.
it was right around then that a woman about 100 feet away on the other side of the creek started waving her arms and yelling. It was hard to hear, but as far as we could make out, she wasn't saying "Hi!" but rather was telling us we couldn't park at that posted spot. We tried to communicate back to her that we knew and were parking legitimately up the road. But in addition, was she actually telling us not to take out there?
Hmmm, time out from our tale: I can hear you wonder why, given the uncertainty, we proceeded. If I were to advise another group under these conditions, I'd tell them to go home. But we'd come a long way to paddle our 2 miles of whitewater; river left was ragged, undeveloped woods; the owner (so we thought) wasn't present for us to seek permission; there were just three of us; and dammit, I guess we thought we could just squeak by.
We geared up and shuffled Mark's and Peter's kayaks around, getting ready to leave the takeout car and head back to the put-in. Have you had the experience of getting ready to shuttle when you've been away from paddling for several months? All three of us were definitely in "how do you do this?" mode. We put the kayaks in the vehicle that was better suited for parking on the verge without getting stuck, and then had to switch them after thinking about that factor. One of us put on his drysuit and then remembered he had neglected to take off his jeans first. I put my glasses, beanie, and helmet on in the wrong order and forgot to put on my arm brace. That kind of thing. Amazingly, though, we didn't leave any put-in necessities (paddles, PFDs, helmets, and the like) at the takeout.
We put on the river at about noon. The level was low—700 cfs on the Monocacy's Bridgeport gage, which is 10 miles downstream, but we had plenty of water. (The AW minimum is 470; high runnable begins at 2400.) The water was opaque; the many rocks tended to announce themselves only when we scraped over them or (in my case, at least, but only once) smacked head-on into them. The standout thing about the run was the ice that remained on the shore, giant slabs testifying to the recent hard freeze. The rapids were twisty, we paddled them decently if not elegantly, and before long our 2 miles were over and we were looking at the rough-hewn expanse of ice above the dam.
The takeout spot featured uneven footing, brambles, and no path to the road some hundreds of feet away. It was here that I most felt my months off the river. My lightweight composite canoe weighed far more than I remembered, and I had to heave it off my shoulders and rest. Twice. Peter, of course, offered to help. Panting heavily, I insisted, "No, I'm fine," and then gratefully accepted assistance over a rock that had stopped me in my tracks.
What made it especially difficult is that we were rushing, as the woman across the creek again was waving her arms and yelling. This time, I heard nothing about parking but did make out the words "My land!"
It was no great surprise when I finally got to the road and a Pennsylvania state trooper said (pleasantly), "Hello, Mr. Lempert." Mark and Peter had gotten through the brush ahead of me, had already begun conversing with the trooper who had appeared, and had given him our names. Yes, someone had called the cops on us. (Google informed us later that in that locale, rural areas often are policed by the Pennsylvania State Police instead of a local force.)
What did surprise me was this young trooper's offer to help me carry my boat up the road to the car. I considered again saying, "No, I'm fine," and then, once again, gratefully accepted assistance.
The trooper was quite friendly and repeated several times that he was there just "for purposes of notification." So Peter, Mark, and I—and now you readers, every one of you—have been duly notified that taking out above the dam on Marsh Creek river left is NOT ALLOWED. Another surprise, then, was that the landowner across the creek did not press trespassing charges.
The trip ended well with a late lunch at Thurmont's Mountain Gate family restaurant, where the servings are ample and the fried chicken, in my opinion, is not to be missed. Not to mention a club sandwich that can feed three regular people or one very hungry paddler.
In our follow-up text thread, Mark summed up the trip succinctly: "It was an adventure." I responded, "Just think of all the days we’ve paddled that you don’t remember anything about. Today, on the other hand, was one we'll remember!" And Peter said, "Exactly."