First really warm and sunny day after a cool, indeed cold, Spring. It had rained about an inch last night, so the level was rising. And a trip to Patapsco's Bloede Dam Rapid, conceived by Wayne, got folded into this one.
And the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend, so, although our five NoVa counties are officially on lock-down for another two weeks, folks were out in force.
We too were well represented, being Gary & Ginny five: who called the trip, and Wayne, Hendrick and Alf - joined within an hour by Pam- out for the first time since her knee operation. It had rained strongly during the night, so the gauge was rocketing up as we noodled around the big Rapid - I figure that Leesburg USGS being two hours upstream, we were at 350 cfs, not 366 that the gauge registered at out 12:30 put-in time. I tried to attain up the breached dam - again w/o success - then most of us tried the right hand part of the rapid. No problems, not even any closies.
After a couple of hours of carrying up the dam slope to run the rapid again and again, we paddled back to Keep Loudoun Beautiful Parklet and took out among a bevy of happy Latinos, who we hope were an extended family, as there wasn't a face covering on anyone. 12:30-3:00 - a wild success. Well try to get more new folk out here when the water's up again.