MF Day 1, 6/10/2007: Making camp

Mile 0 (Boundary Creek) to mile 13.8 (Fire Island)

First, here is a graph of the mean water level on the Middle Fork during our trip.

Second, I wanted to post this video of CB running Velvet Falls just to show the textbook version of how it should be done.


That first day was quite cold and rainy, so no one took a lot of pictures.

We stopped and scouted Sulphur Slide rapid, it was the first official class III rapid, and as a general rule, I like to scout the first significant drop on any new river I run. Primarily because I want to make certain that the people making the guidebook and I agree at least approximately on the definition of "class III."

We did, but Sulphur Slide was a good rapid to look at in any case: a long rock garden with a lot of options, but also a lot stuff to avoid. Not a big deal, but good to take a peek.

We decided as a group to also scout the first class IV rapid (not counting Velvet Falls), but there, we ran into our first snag.

CB had downloaded all the waypoints of the major rapids into his GPS, so we had been relying on that to tell us where we were. Apparently, the waypoint for Powerhouse Rapid was a little "off." So we got to run it blind. In more ways than one, since there was a driving rain at the time which made it difficult to see anyway.

After that, CB was a little reluctant to use the GPS, so for the remainder of the trip, we relied on the more traditional method of map reading to determine our whereabouts.

It was a bad day for Backstroke: aside from running the center of Velvet Falls, he couldn't see a large rock in the middle of Powerhouse Rapid due to the rain, and got himself stuck for about 5 minutes.

I was behind him, and tried to bump him off with my boat, but he was on there good. Eventually, he freed himself and we floated leisurely down to our first campsite at Fire Island.

This was my favorite camp of the trip despite the rain. We brought an Outfitter Wing for just such a situation, and the trees At Fire Island seemed to be placed perfectly for setting it up:

After a long day (adrenaline-wise) it was good to sit in the shelter of the wing, and have a beer. Sparky made Lasagna, and there was plenty of strawberry shortcake for dessert.