We had 10 paddlers join us for our standard run from the Old Angler’s Inn put-in on the Potomac River down to the Lock 10 take-out. We are not sure what the water level was since the Little Falls gauge has been inoperable since 11:30 AM of the 21st, but we estimate that the level was about 3 feet, and the discharge was approximately 3,000 cfs. The group consisted of Brent Harclerode, Alf Cooley, Laurel Hanson, Tina Schneider, Nienke Stam, Alena Volka, Jennifer Stover, Natalie Hanno, Tim Pierce, and me. We launched very close to our target time of 6:30 PM and arrived at Lock 10 a bit after 8:30 PM getting us to our cars well after dark. This week the water level was high enough that the Offutt rapids were still in play, although not quite as dynamic as last week. But for this late in the summer, we’ll take it. We were also able to enjoy some play time around Yellow Falls and Stubblefield Falls. All three rapids offered plenty of opportunities to practice some surfing, ferrying, some practice rolls, and a few of cool stunts. We had two swimmers at Yellow Falls, and one of those gave us a chance to practice our in-water, paddler recovery, boat drainage, and boat re-entry skills. The other nice thing about this trip is that we met 4 new paddlers, that I hope we can convince to continue joining us.
One item of note, there is a tree down on the beach right at the lock 10 take out. We were able to get around it, but it did create a bit of a bottleneck since the access area to the beach is now much smaller. (This being one of the Cabin John Rescue Squad's two major access points to the river, I notified them of the blockage. They said they would eliminate it soonest. - Alf Cooley)
We made it back to Lock 10 after sunset this time. So next week we will move our meeting time from 6PM to 5:30 PM due the days getting shorter. Hopefully that will give us a little more day light on the river and more time to play.
The group moving from Offutt island to Yellow Falls
The group paddling out of Stubblefield Falls at sunset
Submitted by
Dean Hawes