North East Roadtrip 2015 - Day 4 Morning
Waking up at Culley's house we looked at flows. New Haven hadn't come up yet but New York seemed to be. So we planned on John's Brook followed by north Boquet with a fall back of the Ausable Chasm. As we crossed into New York I started getting the feeling they must have gotten a lot more rain than we expected as little creeks were full and brown, and waterfalls were plunging from the cliffs surrounding Lake Champlain. Our concern was validated once we arrived in Keene Valley and got a look at the flow on John's Brook. A quick text of a picture of the flow at first bridge validated it was way too high for a descent for a pair of boaters who knew virtually nothing about the run. Dang.
So, plan B… head to North Boquet though there was some confusion as some sources just call it the Boquet. Either way, this is the classic section on the Boquet. The section of the North Fork above NY-73 has been run, but it is not common. Same with the section of the South Fork above NY-73. I think the confusion is just that the first 1.3 miles is on the North Fork, but then it hits the confluence and just becomes the Boquet for the remainder of the run.
Putting in just below the NY-73 bridge offers no warm up for the Shoebox falls. Putting in higher (above the road) only looks to be harder so unless you are looking to extend the run with more class V, that doesn't offer a warm-up of any sort. Below the falls things ebb between mellow floats and “gorges” of sustained rapids. Just below the falls, things start class III before becoming class II, just before the confluence it grows to class III and IV-, the next gorge is the hardest with non-stop class IV moves making it a class IV+ gorge, before it again pewters out up to the final gorge which is class III- with the exception of Andy's Hole which is a mean two tiered drop with a large sieve in play and a large uniform hole to clean things up. Once again things wind down to the take-out… unless you are looking to huck the Split Rock Falls at take-out, a feat which is possible, but only recommended at low flow.
After our run we considered going to the Ausable, but the flow was very high so we opted instead to race back to Vermont (2.5 hours back the way we came) to get New Haven Ledges which had begun to spike up to a very fun 730 cfs. So off we drove!
On the Boquet, we had 5.4' on the E. Br. Ausable gauge. I thought this was a great flow. Plenty of eddies, some sticky holes, but I didn't feel like I was getting pushed anywhere. Probably a perfect medium flow by California standards.
Last: North East Roadtrip: Day 3 Afternoon (Mill Brook)
Next: North East Roadtrip: Day 4 Afternoon (New Haven Ledges)
