help_outline Skip to main content

Trip Reports

Thursday Paddle July 9 - Needles, with option for ...
Author Last Post

A contingent of Thursday Paddlers took advantage of a hot but fine summer day July 9 to paddle the Needles (Potomac River at Harpers Ferry) from Bakerton Rd to Weverton, with an optional bike shuttle that nicely complemented the river component. Joining the trip were Sheila Chapelle, Mike Aronoff, Lisa Laden, and Cindy Rogers (K-1) and Larry Lempert, trip coordinator (OC-1). Cindy and Sheila each had husband-provided shuttles (life of luxury!), while Lisa, Mike, and Larry biked back to the put-in after paddling, having earlier left their bikes at the takeout. 

 

This is one of the area's prettiest and most interesting short-bike-shuttle opportunities. The ride is about 4.5 miles. From Weverton the route is Towpath (a very smooth, even section) to the pedestrian bridge into Harpers Ferry (just reopened after months of closure for repairs), up Potomac Street until it ends, and then continuing on a bikeable trail to the Harpers Ferry Campground road off Bakerton Rd. Two caveats bikers should keep in mind: 

- This route requires you to carry the bikes up a metal stairway of, say, 30 or 40 steps from the Towpath to the bridge (no small matter in Mike's case, as he was riding a nifty but heavy electric-motor-assisted bike). 

- The trail from Potomac Street to the campground road is much rockier and rougher than the Towpath. It's the kind of trail a moutain bike would handle well, and a hybrid can deal with adequately, but it would be rough on a good road bike. That stretch is only a mile long, however.

 

The flow for the trip was 3030 at Point of Rocks minus 1200 at Millville = 1830 cfs (against a minimum of 500) (Shepherdstown, meanwhile, was 1860). This level was on the low side through the dam ruins at the beginning but was ample below that, and there were a number of catchable small, smooth surfing waves.

Return to Forum