Verm Weekends

Well, the old Vermillion has surprised me again.   After missing out on the two prime weekends on the North Shore, the shallow class II-III river seemed like a pretty meager substitute, but it turned out to still have one more trick up its wet, chilly sleeve. 

I went out for an afternoon run with Bill and Bob mostly just to get on some water and catch up with a couple of guys I hadn’t paddled with in quite a while.   I was having some knee problems that made it difficult to get into the playboat, so I was down there in a creeker.  It was a nice day with great company, but I still didn’t feel the excitement that paddling always brings. 

Last weekend, a whole group of paddlers went down for a run, and this time I was able to get in the playboat.  We had a blast.  There were paddlers I’d known for years, some I’d only met once or twice, and even a couple people that were totally new to me. 

Graeme, who is the only person I know to paddle the same model boat for as long as I have, finally got a new one!  It was great watching him put it through its paces.  There were also some people that were still getting their feel for some of the features, so there was plenty of new-ness to go around.      

The water level was good (about 165), the energy was great, and we ripped up every feature on the river in a way that I haven’t done for probably close to two years.  

So, now that my stoke has been refueled by some great paddling companions, I’m looking forward to some upcoming trips!  Wisconsin, Canoe U, and (hopefully) another trip out to Colorado are all in the cards for the coming weeks, so it should be awesome! 

SYOTR

First Verm!

I finally made it down to the Vermillion for the first time in 2011.  For the first time in a long time I wasn’t part of the ice-breaking crew that made  the actual first run of the year, but it was pretty chilly all the same. 

The temp was about 17 degrees when we put on, and there was a stiff wind that added a nice bite to it.  Nora, Amy, and I were all bundled up under our dry suits, though, so once we started walking/climbing/slipping our way towards the put-in we were fine. 

This was Amy’s first winter paddling experience, and the ice ledges and frozen gear didn’t slow her down a bit.  She did great, even practicing surfing down in Donut! 

It was also Nora’s first descent in her new Big Dog kayak that she won in a nation-wide contest.   Though she was still working on getting the outfitting set, it sounded like the boat performed well overall. 

As for the river, the level was probably only about 75cfs, but it was running winter-fast, so there was fun play at both Railroad and Donut.   Mostly, though, it was just nice to back on the water with friends.  Looking forward to a new season!

Verm Video!

Well, it took me awhile, and Windows Movie Maker has butchered it, but here's the video from the first Verm run of the year. The first few seconds are supposed to be choppy and fast-forward. After that, all of the weirdness is the Movie Maker program. Sorry.
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Season Opener on the Verm!

Wow, what a day! In two weeks we went from cold and snow to sunny and 64 degrees! The ice finally cracked off the Verm, and Caleb, Dennis, Graeme, and I headed down to check out the first run of the year. The river gauge was still frozen, so we didn't know the cfs, but the gauge height was about 5.5 feet. Whatever the cfs, it was running high. Triple had some huge pyramid waves, railroad was steep, narrow, and kicking straight into the river left wall, and the rock in railroad pool stuck out of the water by 5" or so.


The upper portion of S-bend had two surfable waves, and the lower (normal) wave/hole looked like lots of fun. The only problem was it kicked directly up onto the rock shelves on River Left, so if you flipped while surfing you'd get quite a thumpin'.

None of us had ever seen Donut the way it was yesterday, which is impressive since between the 4 us we'd run it many hundreds of times at levels ranging from 35 cfs to over 800. It was a tall, narrow mound that was mostly green, but then there was a little side curler perched on top of it. It was like two features were stacked one on top of the other. Very strange, but fun to blast over.



Fisherman's had a couple large waves leading up to it, but the river-wide hole portion of it wasn't very sticky and was even greened out in parts. We ran hard left and walked right through it.

So, the run was high-speed, big waves, and lots of splashing. The ice shelves were mostly gone, but we still encountered logs and icebergs coming down. If you go, be careful. I had my helmet cam on, so look for that video in the next day or two for a 1st-person view of things. Also, thanks to Dennis who took the pics for us. Great job! Stay tuned...

Verm Cleanup

Sunday was the Annual Vermillion River Cleanup, and we couldn't have had a better day. The weather was beautiful, the volunteers were plentiful, the sponsors were awesome, and it was a great experience all around.

The river was in better shape this year than I'm used to. We only found about 1/2 as many bikes as normal, and less trash in general. It was great to see! Because there was less hauling to be done, a few volunteers were able to devote their time to trail clearing! Over the past couple years, about 8 trees had fallen over the path between the bridge and the falls. The tree crew cleared them all and trimmed back some of the overhanging branches that made it difficult to walk. The trail is now clean, clear, and as safe as it can be. Now if only we could find a way to get some stairs over there...

I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I decided to stay dry this year and do shore cleanup. Thankfully Alex (and later Mike J) brought water gear and waded the length of the river, pulling out all kinds of debris. In fisherman's pool Alex found an old motorcycle and several other large or stuck-in objects. Mike had an old climbing rope, so we rigged up a pulley system to drag them out of the water and up the cliff. The water guys tied on the object, Jay and Art rigged the rope through a tree-mounted carabiner, and I backed my truck to the edge of the cliff to provide the pull. It worked great for the Motorcycle and the first stuck-in bicycle (see the video on Nora's blog), but when we got to the second stuck-in bike we had a bit more trouble. I'm not sure what it was caught on, but the second bike was so stuck that we snapped Mike's 1100lb-rated climbing rope trying to get it out. Apparantly when the rope snapped it looked like a 100' bull whip, cracking like a gunshot in the direction of my truck. Thankfully, we were all standing well clear of the rope and nobody got hurt. Unfortunately nobody got that on tape, so the story will have to suffice.

Huge thanks to Nora for organizing the cleanup again this year. As always, she put her heart and soul into making it the best it can be and really pulled through. She got swag from lots of great sponsors, cooked tacos and homemade salsa for everyone, made the reservations with the Park, got us all gloves and bags, and made a kayak pinata! Thanks for all the hard work!

Last, I have to once again give a huge thanks to Jackson Kayak, Worldkayak.com, and Julie out at Wausau Whitewater because the boat I won at the Midwest Freestyle Championships came! It's a lime-green Jackson Hero, and I'm incredibly stoked to try it out. Though I haven't gotten it on the water yet, I have spent some time sitting in it in my kitchen (this is why I live alone) to get the outfitting just right. Can't wait to get it on a river. Thanks again to everybody helped make the event (and the raffle) possible!

Mini-Expo

Midwest Mountaineering put on their spring Mini-Expo yesterday down at the Verm. There were tons of paddlers, grilled brats and dogs, loads of boats to demo, and enough water to make the play features a really good time.

Graeme made Railroad look like his second home, spinning endlessly and working into low and mid-angle cartwheels, I managed to hit a couple of single and 2-end wheels as entry moves from the top of the foam pile, and just about everybody got some good rides down in the trough.

Donut was it's usual awesome self and people were rippin' it up. It also proved to be a great level for bodysurfing, so I took the opportunity of getting in the first couple of bodysurfs of the year.

I didn't get any pics with my camera, but I did steal Nora's for a few minutes and took some with hers. The ones you see here were taken off of her blog, but she's got more good ones on there so check it out!

Verm II: Vermilicious

Went back for more vermilicious fun today with Nora, Caleb, Andy (Mac), Dennis, and Aaron. This time, however, we had one heck of a good photographer along with us (huge thanks Lisa) who got some great shots. Lisa also brought along her really great son, who we're trying to brainwash into being a future paddler.

We had another great day down there, but I think I wrote enough about it on yesterday's entry that I won't make you read it all again. The notable differences were 1) Andy made a an awesome addition to the crew today, 2) Huck and another guy whose name I didn't catch were also on the river, though they kind of did their own thing. Unfortunately, that included Huck trying to paddle under the ice bridge, getting hung up, and luckily being able to swim out. He lost his paddle in the process, but considering what could have happened it's a small price to pay, and 3) We've got tons more pictures, both from Lisa and Nora's camera.


Here's the pics from top to bottom:
1) The Hike
2) The ice bridge (Also our put-in)
3) D-Rad
4) Triple Drop
5) Caleb and I
6) Caleb in Railroad
7) Dennis Wheeling out of Railroad
8) Huck with his substitute paddles
9) Nora, Andy, and Aaron
10)Aaron

Season Opener!

WooHoo! Paddling season has officially begun. Today Nora, Dennis, Graeme, Aaron, Caleb and myself made the first Verm descent of the year. There was still a big ice bridge above triple drop, so we technically couldn't run the whole thing, but anybody who knows the river knows there isn't really anything above there anyway. Plus, that ice bridge made an awesome put-in!

Nora and Dennis started off in the pool below railroad and paddled up, but Caleb, Graeme, Aaron and I hiked up to see if we could put in above the Triple Drop. As it turned out, there was a great route down the cliff that, though steep and zig-zagging, had good footing and led us right to the ice bridge. The bridge formed from the ice shelves on either side of the river and spanned right across. The ice was still a couple feet thick, so we decided to use the bridge as our put in. Because the top of the ice was about 4' above the water, and the water below was only a few inches deep, we had to push each other along the ice, then ski-jump off the edge so that we wouldn't just nosedive into the bottom. It worked great - possibly my favorite put-in yet on the Verm.

Triple was decently sized and really splashy, which gave everybody a wake-up as the ice water hit our faces. Because of the huge ice ledges that lined the river, there were no eddies and no route except down the center.

At the bottom, Railroad hole was rockin'. It was at just the right level - big and retentive enough to keep things interesting and allow some tricks, but not so huge that you couldn't get out. There was some spin-o-matic action on the River Left shoulder, a couple of ends thrown in the pile (mostly by Graeme, who showed no rustiness at all), and a variety of interesting exit moves.

The ice really narrowed the channel through S-bend and forced you to ride right over the rocky area, but nobody got hung up too bad and everyone avoided the overhangs. The wave at the bottom was silky smooth and even allowed a couple slow spins.

That was in perfect contrast to Donut, which was raging. Because of the restricted flow from the ice shelves and the lack of plant growth and algae this early in the season, the water speed at Donut was unreal. I don't think that I've ever surfed faster moving water. To make it better, the foam pile was almost shoulder high and punchy. It would toss you around and pop you up in between your spins. Speaking of spins, wow. If you got into the right groove, you could get motion sick you were spinning so fast. The water on the shoulder was going fast enough that it would grab you ends and twirl you like a top. It was really a riot. The problem was that the river right eddy was largely blocked by an ice bridge, so if you couldn't catch the left one you were in Fisherman's before you knew it.

After that it was more ice-shelve dodging down to the take out, where nature had mercifully collapsed the shelf at the take out. Thanks to that, we could climb out pretty easily. The best news, however, was that our stairs at the top of the hill held up perfectly over the winter, making and area that normally required ropes to climb an easy walk.

All in all, it was an amazing day. Warm temps, good water, and good friends. Tough to beat. Check out Graeme's new British flag helmet! I'll try to get some on-river pics tomorrow. Until then, I think Nora should have some posted on her blog, so check it out!

Clean up!

That's right, this past Sunday was the annual Vermillion River Cleanup. Nora did a great job organizing it and it really went well. Not sure how many people showed up, but I've got to think it was at least 20. What was really nice was that a bunch of the people were High School students from Hastings. Not only did they really pull their own weight and then some, but it's nice to get some local people involved in cleaning up the river. Maybe it will have a bit of a trickle-down to all of the bike-throwing punks that make the cleanup necessary every year.

Like last year, Nora organized the event and managed to snag some sweet swag from a whole bunch of sponsors. I'm pretty sure that everybody that volunteered got something, which is pretty cool. I spent my day in the water with Ivan, Dennis, and three high school seniors dragging bikes, scooters, railroad tracks, a steel staircase, and more over to shore where the dry volunteers carried, roped, and dragged it up the cliffs. Everybody worked hard and I was amazed at how much big heavy stuff they got up to the trash pile. It was a good time, there were good people, and the river is that much cleaner and safer.

Check Nora's blog for the pictures and some more info.

Verm Again

Dennis, Paul B, and I headed down to catch what was left of the Verm flow. The water level was only in the 70-80 cfs range (about 1/2 of Monday's level), but was still fun. Triple was in and fun, Railroad had the spin-o-matic groove on surfer's right, and Donut was a real lively and fun time that was perfect for hand surfing. Couple noteworthy events: First, Dennis and I completed the first (to out knowledge) tandem spin in Donut - we were party surfing the wave, linked boats, and got spun around like that; Second, I had a beaver dive out of the grass after fisherman's and swim directly under my boat. On a less cool note, there is now a man's wedding band somewhere in the rocks immediately upstream from the takeout and on the river right side. Nate had taken a friend down the river shortly before Dennis, Paul, and I arrived. Apparently his friend did well, but flipped right before the takeout and lost his ring while fighting to get upright again. If you see a shiny band in the water, grab it and let Nate G know!

Hooray for Rain!

Aaah, the upside to a wet and dreary weekend... In addition to relieving all of the drought-related problems, the recent rains finally brought the Verm back to life! It was a great time down there today, with the level just over 200 cfs and around 20 local paddlers making it down for a run. The level was perfect for playboating and it was really great to get to see everybody again. I paddled until my arms gave out, then grabbed the camera for about 10 minutes at Donut Hole. Really great time. Check Nora's blog for more pics.