By: Hendrik van Oss
Given forecasted good weather and a normal dam release volume, I coordinated a trip on Saturday, May 27, on the Bloomington section of the North Branch of the Potomac. Although I spent Friday and Saturday nights at a motel in Keyser, a prior commitment to attend a sarod concert (Hindusthani classical music) in Bethesda on Sunday evening precluded my paddling on Sunday. Both motels in town had vacancies, but I gather that both the Robert Craig and Big Run campgrounds were fully booked for the Memorial Day weekend.
Initially, 10 folks had signed up for the trip, but a couple of these dropped out and yet others, not on the original list, showed up at the 10:30 AM Bloomington take-out rendezvous. It was a bit difficult to keep track of everyone, but several participants later provided me with some of the missing names. If the list is now, in fact, complete, we were 16 boaters in total: Matt Shaw (K1) and his wife Maggie Allen (K1) (on their PFD of this run), Beth Koller (K1), Marilyn Jones (K1), John Snitzer (K1), Lou Campagna (inflatable K1), Jim Pruitt (K1), Tony Allred (K1), Glen Johnston (K1), Josephine Cox (K1), Hendrik van Oss (Dagger Caper OC1), Rick Koller (Whitesell Descender OC1), Jim Norton (Mohawk Shaman OC1), St. Pete Martin (Mohawk Shaman OC1), J. Robbins (Ocoee OC1), and Guth Robbins (Cascade C1). Given the large number of paddlers, we had initially thought it best to split into two groups; this surgery never really was done but the group managed to get down the river without any traffic snarls.
Some of the Bloomington releases earlier this Spring were at well above the usual, nominal 1,000 cfs release level, and continued high water levels in the Jennings Randolph Reservoir had led to a number of high-volume weekday releases to compensate. I was worried that our release would also be high, but in the preceding days’ announcements regarding the weekend’s whitewater release, the 1,000 cfs forecast remain unchanged, and that was indeed the release level on Saturday.
At 1,000 cfs, Bloomington is a fun, bouncy, biggish class II to II+ run of ~6.1 miles with one rapid (Robins Nest) that can be run as either a class II (sneak) or a class III, and another (Top of the World) that is a bouncy II+ that, for this open-boater anyway, seems more like a low III. Except for Robins Nest—which is a ledge rapid--the run is characterized by fairly long, visibly sloping, boulder rapids with big waves. Pretty much everything is padded, and most rapids offer a choice of routes, on a read-and-run basis, and eddy opportunities. Most of the rapids are followed by generous flat stretches for bailing if necessary. Coming from deep in the reservoir, the water is very cold.
The group all expressed their opinion that the Saturday’s run was a lot of fun and, with sunshine, air temperatures in the low 70’s, and but light breezes, one could hardly have wished for nicer weather. There was no carnage. At lunch (across from the concrete railroad embankment) immediately below “Lunch Stop” rapid, J. Robbins entertained us with a display of surfing prowess in the deep hole midriver until his Ocoee developed a “leak” that necessitated a retreat to shore to dehumidify the boat.
Rick Koller decided to explore the first cutoff channel (river left) above Robins Nest; we all thought he’d find it with too little water (the second cutoff channel certainly would have been low at this release level), but he got through without any problems. He had not realized, however, that this route was long and would rejoin the main channel well below Robins Nest, which he thus missed running. The rest of us stayed in the main channel and ran Robins Nest without incident. There is still a small log or stump in Robins Nest just below the main drop(between the midriver hydraulic and the line to tweeze to the left of the hydraulic)—it did not seem to pose a problem for anyone.
In the calm stretch just above Top of the World, there is a new, fairly large fallen tree that has grounded, branches aimed downstream, on the ledge/rock that forms the large, convenient eddymidstream, blocking the left-side access to the eddy (the right-side access remains open). Together with the downed tree on river right that has been there for some years now, these trees now somewhat constrain the initial approach to Top of the World, but the river opens back up in time to offer full width access to the rapid itself. I took my usual ~center-to right(ish) line through the rapid and managed to catch two waves the wrong way; the resulting “leakage” necessitated some bailing at the bottom. The rest of the run was without incident.
At least a few in our group paddled the run on Sunday as well, apparently without any issues, save that the weather was perhaps less spectacular.