I know the 1-inch diameter rung of stainless steel I grip is bolted 6 inches deep, and that combined with the safety cable the system in place could hold more than 20 times my body weight, but I'm still paralyzed with fear. In fact, I'm shaking from it, even though I've been here at least 3 times before, gripping the same rung bolted to the same rock, hooked into the same cable. Looking around, I can see that nothing has changed about this place since the last time I was here. So, why in the world am I so scared that I must consciously focus on slowing my breathing in order to just go on?
(breeeeeeathe in). . . (breeeeeeath out) . . .
After taking some time to get my wits about me, I force myself to marvel at what's around me. I'm lashed to a rock fin 20 feet wide and hundreds of vertical feet into the West Virginia sky. It's breathtaking (indeed; it's taken mine). Just then, a small bird floats along, takes a little rest on a narrow rock ledge, toddles around a bit, and then swoops away. "Little bastard," I think, because that bird has wings and can just hop off this rock and soar away. No fear whatsoever; the little sonofabitch has no idea what I'm going through!
Molly and Me
It's because we don't have wings that the via Ferrata, a non-climbing way to experience rock climbing, (and the sport of rock climbing itself) exists in the first place, and has attracted me, Molly, and four of our friends on a whirlwind mountain tour.
The idea started in our living room after a group dinner we hosted (steak, if I remember correctly). Molly and I were talking about the "old times," which were oddly only a few years ago, before kids came along, and all the adventures we used to take. Boating, backpacking, camping, and skiing took us to beautiful places on a weekly basis. It was then that we came up with the idea: let's see what we can squeeze into 36 hours while the kiddos do a slumber party with their grandparents. We'd rise to the challenge and the kids won't even have the time to miss us!
Months later, we sat at the the Front Porch restaurant in Seneca Rocks, WV, relaxing with the satisfaction of pulling it off. All we had left was the drive home. Our climbing guide for the day, Beau (dacious), pointed out climbing routes on the famous crag, stealing some of our pizza while we gazed across the North Fork valley.
The Front Porch is this way
It wasn't all relaxation. Nelson Rock's via Ferrata scared two members of our party into temporarily calling it quits. In both cases, however, a Hulk Hogan-esque resurgence from near submission to a successful climb of the entire course followed their breakdowns. The 4-hour trip through the course dished out emotional anguish equally as exhausting as the physical demand. The sun beat down on us, quickly draining us as we scampered up the rock, one rung at a time. We emerged at the top dehydrated, famished, sunburned, and grinning.
Our reward for the climb: a West Virginia Bath in the creek at the base of Nelson Rocks. In roughly 36 hours we packed it all into a 350 mile round trip.
I wasn't the only one to consider that the North Fork Mountain Trail in Grant and Pendleton Counties, WV would make for a truly epic mountain bike ride. For one thing, it's been touted as an "epic" trail by the International Mountain Biking Association. Perhaps because of the popularity of the list of IMBA epics, the NFMT has become famous among mountain bike clubs, many of which take annual trips to ride the NFMT, often driving across several states to get there. I'd been aware of the trail for nearly a decade, and finally got to ride it this past Monday.
I first stumbled upon a description for the NFMT in 2003 in the Monongahela National Forest Hiking Guidewhile sitting fireside at the Cheat Mountain Club. Four years later I found a good weekend to hike the trail and spent two days with a group of backpackers walking along the North Fork Mountain ridge as the fall colors blew us away. I wrote about that trip in an archive here. While hiking the NFMT that October, our group encountered several groups of mountain bikers, who were all traveling the trail South to North. That's when I decided that I'd have to try the trail on my mountain bike as an epic someday.
The 2007 group ponders yet another vista
The trail is generally considered a hiking path, but there are no regulations in place prohibiting bikes on the NFMT. That scenario was in jeopardy last year when the mountain area where it lies was included in a federal bill for designation as wilderness, presumably to prevent the possibility of the ridge becoming a wind farm. The trail instantly gained increase notoriety among mountain bikers because restrictions on wilderness areas also prohibit mountain bikes. Even though a few groups formed to lobby against the bill, I figured that I might not have much time left.
When I got the chance to ride the NFMT this past Monday, I joined a few old friends and a few new ones (climbing guides at nearby Nelson Rocks Outdoor Center who were on their day off) for a go at the fabled path. It was epic indeed.
Laurels in bloom
For most of its 23 mile length, the NFMT is a high-elevation ridge ride. The length may seem short but because of the difficulty of the terrain, it's a full day excursion. In addition, the trail's linear route requires a 90 minute shuttle. Once the trail climbs for a few miles out of Judy Gap, a repeating pattern emerges. Rocky ascents into the sky are followed by a ride along a narrow knoll with steep cliffs and hillsides providing distant views to both the east and west. Then, gnarly descents into the mountain's saddles start the cycle over. Twice in this cycle, the trail loses substantial elevation and that spells two big climbs, and the rocks really never let up.
Being at the top of a mountain, the rocks on the NFMT fractured relatively recently and so they haven't eroded much. Rather, they are naturally more jagged than the round rocks found below. Those
One of many off-camber sections
jagged rocks make for difficult and technical slow going sections. The effort is easily trumped by the senses, though. Blossoming mountain laurels create dense tunnels of white and purple, and ripe blueberries interrupt the ride by attracting the taste buds. The views come one after another. Then, just when the difficult riding has seeped in and manifested itself as dizzying fatigue, the trail drops out of the sky. The final 3+ miles are exclusively downhill, and aside from a short technical section at the top, those miles are tight, fast, and a total freaking blast down to the northern trailhead at Smokehole Road.
As with any long ride, the ups and downs of the ride on Monday were paralleled naturally by lowlights and highlights. The tight, twisty road leading up to the trailhead caused at least one member of the team to lose his breakfast before we even began. Mechanical issues were ongoing
Blueberries!
as one drivetrain failed to cooperate and a crankarm refused to stay in place. The slippery, jagged rocks sent more than half of us over handlebars at least once each and caused two flats. Walking up the steep and technical ascents was the norm, especially late in the day. Despite all of this, the collective grin of the group was very wide throughout the 7 hour long excursion (yes, it took that long, and I wouldn't expect much less from other groups). And, it was well worth the 7+ hours spent driving as well.
276 lives in the woods between the highway and the creek
Tucked between a small urban stream and one of Pittsburgh's busiest highways is a cowboy hat-shaped swath of land that for decades received very few visitors and no attention. At the bottom is a 12-foot embankment dropping into a swampy marsh and at the top is a fence bordering the highway. The land is roughly 3/4 of a mile long and has a maximum width of about 100 yards. In places there's only 30 feet between the highway and the creek.
In the spring of 2009, I discovered a roughly cut mountain bike trail there and rode it for the first time. It was in the early stages of being transformed into a mountain bike playground, and for over two years rogue trail builders have spent countless hours digging and building on wet days, and then riding it on dry days. Those of us who now ride the trail call it 276.
To ride 276, one must first cross a waterway known to be polluted with urban runoff. Portions of the trail travel inches away from a chain-link fence installed to prevent animals from meandering onto the highway. The noise of the highway can be deafening and the air can be dirty with smog, especially on hot summer days. Old broken concrete, manhole covers, and lumber discarded from highway and public works projects litter the land alongside broken glass and plastic bags.
Because of the undesirability of this area, it is terribly overgrown with invasive species and thick shrubs. Fallen trees and their stumps sit to rot away and vines canvas the woods. However, it turns out that it is the perfect site for a mountain bike trail in a city park, partially because nobody else wants to go there. Hikers and dog walkers are in a perpetual struggle with bikes in other parts of the park, but they never meet on 276. And, after a big rain, when mountain bikers ought not ride and rut the soggy trails, the creek is too swollen to cross and so nobody can ride it, anyway.
And so it went mostly unnoticed for at least two years, and it just keeps getting better.
276 is a distinctive mountain bike trail with lots of obstacles. These obstacles will excite most cyclists, though some may provoke some anxiety. Single speed riders will probably grumble over the initial climb and perhaps one other short ascent, but by the time they splash across the creek at the trail's exit, they'll be grinning. 276 is a playground.
Personally, I rarely rode 276 for a long time after one day in 2009 when I completed the circuit -- creek crossing to creek crossing -- with no "dabs." Mountain bikers use this term for a foot touch to the ground, and a typical run of this trail includes many dabs. Crashes were plentiful and after one memorable incident when a tree branch rammed a hole through my helmet, grazing the back of my skull after I fell off a big log, I never rode that obstacle again. Gashed shins and elbows and poked eyes accompanied taco'ed wheels, broken derailleurs, and lots of flat tires. The trail was just not ridden frequently enough to prevent overgrowth and the path collected debris after each windy day.
Now that 276 has been packed down by higher traffic and the obstacles have been "sanitized," I make it part of my regular park loop.
Polluted, yet beautiful. Singletrack is hidden on the right.
Here's a blow-by-blow of 276 in its current layout. The trail builders seem to be working continuously on the trail, and so this may be outdated within a week.
The creek crossing: Riders can cross the creek in several different places. Once they are across, their handlebars turn upstream and they pedal the singletrack along the bank. This section is somewhat underdeveloped, probably because the trail builders are unwilling to maintain a stretch that is in full view of park employees and everyday users.
The big climb: After a switchback away from the creek, a long climb steadily ascends the entirety of the hillside, terminating at a second switchback at the top. A few small logpiles make it tougher, but in general most riders on geared bikes should be able to make this climb in dry conditions.
The fence ride: After the climb, 276 tightly follows the highway fence, about 30 feet above the highway. It's noisy, but riders may not notice because they are focused on winding between the small trees and the fence.
The Optional Loop's only obstacle
The optional loop: A turn to the right adds some mileage to 276 and keeps riders against the fence. One A-frame between two trees comes just before this loops rejoins the main path in the same place it left.
The Split
The playground: After diverging from the fence, 276's features come one after another though a winding, bermed section. Riders first spin across half of a 12 foot hollow log (the groove). Then, the trail goes right between two big tree trunks growing from the same point (the split). Immediately following, there is a dog-legged dirt ramp up and over a dead tree and a tunnel built between the root balls of two huge trees that fell in opposing directions. Trail builders cleverly capped the natural chasm with a roof of branches, and "paved" the ground with a rock garden. After the tunnel, an option to the right goes over 276's signature obstacle: a 45 foot long tree bridge (the logride). This 3 foot diameter tree is lying on its side and has lumber fixed to it, creating a bridge-like ride over thick brush. The left branch, or "chicken" line, boasts a simple bridge over a log jam and then launches the rider off several jumps before going over a high-speed skinny bridge that rattles as you fly over it. The playground is over, but there are more features ahead.
45 feet of lumbered log
276's infamous tunnel
A simple bridge
The cradles: Now at the bottom of the hillside, riders are pedaling along the edge of the embankment above the marsh. After a switchback to the right, two of 276's most unique obstacles, the rock cradles, take riders over two "roads" of big river rocks with "curbs" of thick branches.
LOGPILE!
The off-ramp: Climbing to the top of the hillside again, 276 rides along the highway fence once again. After 276's summit is achieved, the ground drops out for a fast descent that ends with a second option. A trail sign suggests that the right option is expert, and the left intermediate. Indeed, the right branch swings within a few feet of the highway, follows a steep fall-line, and then rides over a humungous log pile. The left branch is gentler, with a few humps and small log piles.
The flats: When the off-ramp branches converge, a small ford across a drainage ravine puts riders into the second half of 276. This section is reserved, perhaps awaiting the builders' attention, but it's fast and it flows. After the playground, cradles, and off-ramp, it's a nice breather.
Crossing the creek at the end, you're a quarter mile of flat, wide walking path from the beginning. Fire it up again, or hit the adjacent trailhead for the next section of rogue trail, about 20 yards to the right. This park's never been better for mountain biking!
Ford!
Git r dun
** Credits: You may have seen the name of a very talented local photographer and mountain biker in the corners of some of the photos I used here. He has thousands and thousand more photos of Pittsburgh and its adjacent natural places. They can be found at http://www.jonpratt.com/
** Outtakes from the early days on 276, sometime after discovering it (around April, 2009).
Somewhere in the span of ridges and valleys between US 220 and State Route 55 lies a deep and remote canyon through which the South Branch of the Potomac slowly drains some of the most beautiful parts of West Virginia's Grant and Pendleton Counties. They call this canyon Smokehole.
Looking ahead to his 40th birthday, my brother-in-law, Sam, decided that he wanted to celebrate the way he remembered celebrating as a kid: on the water. As he tells me, some mid-May weekend was always reserved as a weekend for an overnight canoe camping trip. And, he also tells me that it had been at least a decade since the most recent one. The responsibility was mine: find a river for us to paddle down. No wives, no kids, and no cell phones.
Camping Robinson Crusoe style
That was months ago, and since then Sam and I scoured print and online river guides to find what we hoped would be the perfect weekend trip. Several options had to be arranged, because there's no telling what the water levels would be like. Sometimes in mid-May the rivers are swollen torrents. In that case we'd paddle something high up in the watershed, a tight and narrow creek. In other years the spring rain is lighter and in that case we'd be looking for a larger stream down the valley. As it turned out, the weekend we picked provided us with options somewhere in the middle, and Smokehole Canyon stood out as the best thing going. I'd have never expected it to be what it was.
Running the "falls"
I try not to be a river snob, but for some reason I was under the illusion prior to this trip that in order to find scenery in the Eastern mountains like that of Smokehole Canyon, you need to be on heavy whitewater. It made sense to me -- the steeper rivers and creeks are in less inhabitable canyons and so people tend to not live there. But, Smokehole broke the mold. The steep canyon walls surrounding us as we paddled by were a thousand feet tall. Rocky crags punched through and terminated high in the sky with sharp, knuckled outcroppings. Eagles and Osprey circled and swooped. Tiny tributaries ended with tall cascading showers onto pebbled beaches. And, wildflowers in the thousands surrounded us on our flood-plain campsite. Shangri-la comes to mind, but isn't quite effective. Plus, Smokehole sounds way cooler.
A happy 40-year old
A damn good campsite
Where we put in, at Big Bend Campground, required a 10+ mile drive down a road that ends there and goes no further. Beyond that, Smokehole canyon has no roads. It has no hiking paths and only a few forgotten, broken cottages. One former lodge penetrates the serenity, a hulking log cabin with dozens of windows overlooking the South Branch, but it's empty and no longer kept up. Word has it that the drive into Smokehole Lodge was over an hour on rough roads, perhaps the reason it never turned a profit. Below the 10 miles of the deepest part of the canyon, the walls recede and civilization creeps back. First, some goats in a field run away from human strangers. Then, a small church. Finally, a road and some homes that look to be in current use. A decommissioned cable car hangs over the river, reminding those who pass under of the way things used to be.
The Royal Glen Dam (cl. 2)
In total, two class 2 rapids spice things up, but the class 1 rapids and fast flatwater come very continuously for over 20 miles. There are very few flat pools, and none of them are more than a few hundred yards long. Campsites are everywhere. We couldn't have asked for more.
These names were in the past 6 months added to an unfortunate list that includes John Nickolas, Scott Hasson, Whitney Shields, Jeff Mayfield, Tim Gavin, and perhaps many others. It's our own regional list, and each mountainous region undoubtedly has its own list to which names are added at varying frequencies. However, to add three names to our local list of Highly Skilled Whitewater Kayakers Who Drowned on a River They Knew Well in such a short amount of time will cause those of us who run the same rivers they paddled regularly to have a deep and reflective look at our priorities.
I have written quite a lot lately about how I now feel while paddling and how my paddling has changed since Carl's demise on Tucker County, WV's Blackwater River (the same river as Tim Gavin, but at a different rapid). Many of our friends have responded similarly and have seen little water time. Since then Don Smith drowned on a solo run of the Blackwater's North Fork, a stretch of whitewater one ridge away that perhaps nobody knew better. When each accident happens, an obsession takes over and I read everything written -- fact or opinion -- about the event. It's my attempt to control the uncontrollable and I'm not the only one. Regional online forums were abuzz for days about Don's accident, just as they had been after Carl and Mark died 9 days apart last October (Mark drowned on the Gauley River, a few hours south).
I think that Don's situation feels the ugliest, though. He was a really freaking good boater and he paddled the North Fork all the freaking time. It's been suggested that Don had more runs on the North Fork than anybody else, anywhere. He was the guy who notified the boating community about shifts in rocks, about down trees blocking passage, about the water level, and about shuttle road conditions. He posted information about his backyard run only a few days before it claimed his life, saying on the online forum BoaterTalk that the "north-fork went to highest level in last 4-5 years today and its likely that there may be some changes, so be heads up on your next run. a number of other northern wv streams also went extremely high and there's likely to be rocks in different places and new wood." He signed the post simply, "d."
I heard more than one boater exclaim, "If I ever decide to run the North Fork, I'd have Don Smith lead me down." Apparently this was the position Tim Gavin held when he drowned on the Upper Blackwater in March,1998, and the gravity of it all feels awful. Others have been affected and wrote about it.
Allow me to amplify this. That Tim Gavin -- who by 1998 knew the Upper Blackwater better than anyone, and who had even designated the slot in which he was to drown "Matter of Time" -- and Don Smith, who virtually lived at the North Fork put-in and who was acutely aware of the new wood danger this week . . . that these two men constituted the first two fatalities on their respective home rivers speaks very strongly about the risks inherent even for the best-informed, most highly skilled among us. - Alden Bird, author of Let It Rain, a whitewater guidebook to the Northeastern US and Eastern Canada.
And this.
"it's miserable to keep losing friends, peers, to what is essentially play. Some people paddle for fun occasionally, some people paddle a lot for the experience and the joy. Some people paddle so much that it's a major, if not THE major component of who they are. . . . is [the coincidence of their fatality] only because they have a higher exposure." - JB Seay, blogger at Creek West Virginia.
Recently, well-known expedition kayaker and author Doug Ammons suggested that 'he died doing what he loved' is a cliche that needs to be retired. As it is certain that none of these guys loved being stuck underwater in a compromised situation, holding their breath and spending every ounce of energy they had trying, unsuccessfully, to free themselves, it is a reasonable proposal. That Don was solo also leaves open the possibility that he was breathing with his head out of water for a long time while he struggled, eventually succumbing to fatigue or hypothermia.
I know that what feels to me like an epidemic of dead boaters is not, and that nobody is out to get us. But, as I process these events, I sometimes think in probabilistic terms. The fact that Don paddled the North Fork as many times as he did may have increased the likelihood that he'd have a fatal accident there. But didn't it also make him better at reacting to accidents when they came? The mind swirls.
They call it Ten-Foot Falls, but it is more like Eight. Laurel Creek, WV
It would be enough to stop boating altogether, but there's just too much in it for me. I've never found an activity to provoke such intense focus as paddling whitewater. The consequences of not initiating the right sequence of precise moves within the setting of roaring whitewater in the bottom of a remote canyon bring on that focus. The world and its responsibilities are, for a moment, not there. In fact, they never were there and never will be. It's living in the present with no past and no future, just doing what I am doing, Zen-style.
When that focus is incomplete, runs are spoiled with swims and nasty inconveniences. I have never been witness to a river fatality and so those inconveniences have at worst been pinned kayaks, broken ankles, bruised elbows, and broken boats or paddles. But, what can possibly replace the intensely profound place I find myself when I'm queued up to run, and then running, a big drop on a steep creek? Somewhere between quitting altogether and arrogantly ignoring the risks there must exist something. Something that can invoke the intensity of an all-day creeking expedition on a snowy February day or the controlled chaos of a big-water river run after a summer downpour.
Each year, just before the annual Cheat River downriver race, my approach to boating undergoes a temporary change. I may pass up a trip down a juicy creek for a flatwater workout. Or, better yet, I might paddle upstream through some gentle, class 1 whitewater. With a few of these training runs under my belt, I usually feel ready enough to race. Even though this spring has been the best creeking season in more than five years, I still passed up my pick of any local intense runs for gentle streams twice this week in the name of training. The Cheat Race is next Friday and I wanted to get in some extended workouts. I feel that I got the training I needed, but I also have been discovering something else. The focus may be there, too.
Attaining is good for you
Going downstream on class 4 or 5 water and going upstream ("attaining") in class 1 or 2 water have more in common that I remembered. A requisite sequence of precise moves. Complete boat control. Intense focus. A beautiful canyon. And, to spice things up, I paddled creeks I'd never been on before. So, the exploratory nature was there (kind of). The more I attained this week, the more I realized that there are only a few things that the two styles do not have in common. The roar is subdued and the power of the water diminished, but the risk -- THE RISK -- is reduced dramatically. I'd do it alone without even thinking twice, and there's no need for a shuttle!
Attaining is a more intense workout than paddling downstream, and the consequences of a missed line are obvious. I simply drift back and try again. Ultimately it's not going to replace river running or creeking, but it just might get me what I need on the water while I contemplate the risks of paddling the way I used to.
Git r dun.
***Note: There's a longer and more unfortunate list that includes many more names, including the recent deaths of Isaac Ludwig and Ed Gaker. These guys happened to pay the ultimate price on a stream they didn't know well, but were elite boaters nonetheless and were not attempting the impossible.
***A little self-promotion: In 2008 I wrote an article titled The Upstream Afterthought for the American Whitewater Journal after I'd competed in my first attainment race.
As if it was some kind of strange sarcastic twist on our personalities, Molly and I met in a McDonald's.
Molly and Me in the Tulip Tree, no idea of what lie ahead
The context of that chance meeting makes the scenario more relevant to who we are. A friend had organized a night hike trip up Old Rag Mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. Our lodging for the weekend was a rustic hike-in cabin called the Tulip Tree and so our large group needed to meet someplace. With a large lot, bathrooms, and hot food, McDonald's in New Market, VA was the best rendezvous we could come up with.
In a completely un-romantic scene, I walked out of the McDonald's men's room shaking my hands dry and was introduced to the woman I would eventually marry. It was Friday, April 6, 2007.
Four cruises around the sun and now we're in a wildly different scenario.
Yesterday I was able to pull off an evening not unlike something I'd be doing four years ago. As if I had all the time in the world and nobody waiting for me at home, I rushed off to go paddling right after teaching a 3:30 lecture. It was just me, and when I got to the take-out of Fike Run just north of the WV border, I met up with essential strangers. I'd communicated with two of my partners for the day via email/facebook, nothing more. After quick salutations we loaded boats to a single vehicle and off we went. "Fikes" is a very tight but gentle stream with a handful of steep rapids worthy of a class 4 rating. It's particularly beautiful, lined with rhododendron and evergreens; a lush, green corridor within the morose brown-black woods of the PA winter. A short time after putting on the creek, we were hit with a short, powerful snowstorm, and within an hour of that, the sun was out, brightly reflecting off the riffles and blinding us. The contrasts remarkably gave me a taste of many of the finer moments that paddling secluded stretches of whitewater can provide, and more so than I'd expected in a single river trip.
It wasn't perfect, though. The incredible place where I'd found myself on Fike Run yesterday evening would not have been possible without scores of strategically more difficult river trips over several years, as well as thousands of dollars in gear and the logistical planning of several other similarly equipped boaters. I even had to carry my heavy boat a half-mile through the woods. But, in a complicated mess of emotions, responsibilities, and conflicts, it just wasn't perfect. I though of Otis and Indie asleep in their cribs at home. I reminisced about Sugar Creek, the class 1 stream I paddled with Molly a few weeks ago, and considered this coming weekend's canoeing opportunities. I remembered Carl, my friend who drowned six months ago while paddling a different remote stream. Because of Carl's incident, I admired the water,
Hiking into Fikes
boulders and trees for their entrapment potential, and then had to remind myself to admire them for their perfect natural coexistence. I ran the creek twice, got off the river just as visibility was fading for the evening, and was changed into my street clothes before anybody else had even unzipped their drysuits.
I remember boating with people like me, when I was more like them. I told myself that my priorities would never change, that exploring the natural world and the human capacity within that world would always remain at the top of my list. What I didn't know, however, was that a few years of maturity and experiences doing the exploring with a partner would change the definition. Now I have three partners. The priority is still there. It just happens differently now. And, I won't stop paddling whitewater, it's just that my style has changed.
When addressing the Old Rag hiking group four years ago, our organizer for the weekend had
Mid-hike transfer, Red Creek/Rorbaugh Plains, Dolly Sods, 2009
referred to me as "Moses" since I was going to be leading the group of young Jews on the night hike.
There is no bad weather: Pulling Indie in her sled.
The only trace of my existence Molly had been made aware of before that meeting was through two emails that I'd sent to the entire group. In one of those emails, I mentioned that "There is no bad weather; only bad clothing," a line that has stuck with us.
Despite being imperfect, my day on Fike Run was instead perfectly timed. It was a gentle reminder of what life was like "living the dream," a bachelor's life in the whitewater Mecca of Morgantown, WV, exploring the rivers and mountains nearly every day of the week. This time I drove home to my family, and that beats the pants off my lonely loft apartment in Morgantown.
This morning, I presented Molly with her anniversary gift. It is the anniversary of a wonderful coincidental meeting that changed both of our lives forever. It wasn't a date we picked because it was best for a wedding venue or for guests' schedules; it was chance. The gift was a canoe paddle that she'll use on Sunday and on every other canoe trip we take and embossed on the blade, next to her initials, is the leaf of the Tulip Tree.
With the sun beating down on our faces and twinkling in the waves, I thought about what a perfect name it was -- Sugar Creek. How sweet it was.
Molly and I were probing the usually easy but sometimes complicated class 1 creek in our canoe while Pop and our friend Wade trailed. It was still mid-March, so 65 degrees is unseasonable, and to have a bankfull of water on Sugar was even lower in probability. But, when we pulled up to the Rt. 427 bridge on Friday with gear and boats at the ready, we saw that we had gotten lucky. Sugar Creek had water.
It was a short ride, about 5 miles or so, to the confluence with French Creek, and the twisting bends of the creek made for a few exciting moments. In mid-March in Northwest PA, the water's cold. Ice cold. But, the canoe race the four of us intend to enter is next week, and so we need to train and Sugar Creek was the only viable gym.
Sugar Creek is a great prototype for class 1 canoeing. Wave trains didn't get too high to threaten a swamp, but without a good line the threat of a tip was there. Islands channelize the creek, providing several options to choose. Every bend in the creek has the possibility of a strainer (we saw many), but the shallow water and low flow are unintimidating. The strainer shown here caused a canoe to spill, but the paddlers were quick to retrieve their gear and didn't even get all that wet.
If Sugar Creek is running, then French Creek is high. Spilling on French in March would be a serious situation, and so when we decided to take the "hero" line through a section of big waves (maybe 3 feet), we went totally overboard on safety. Deep, cold, fast water was enough of a threat and so we set a rope and outlined a plan should a capsize occur, Pop and Wade went first. No problem.
There is no gauge for Sugar Creek, but when we paddled it this past Friday, French was up at about 7 ft at Utica and falling very slightly. We put-in on the river left side of the creek where 427 crosses it near the Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, though it can probably be run from a point much higher, in Cooperstown I believe. The first possible take out is in the town of Sugar Creek, where two bridges cross the creek about 20 feet apart. The second possible take out is on the left bank of French Creek, just after the confluence. Or, if you're in for a longer haul, you can paddle French Creek to the Allegheny and take out at Franklin's Wiegel Bros Marina. If you do that, be sure to let them know in advance, and give them some business. Their paddle shop is well worth keeping around.
