Walking away from Countyline Creek

Anticipations were off the scale as rain had been coming down in the drainage for a few days. As chance would have it I was able to squeeze in some time for an assault on Countyline Creek.  However, time was tight, 10AM to 2PM. This is more than enough time for a casual paddle but gets tight when you have travel constraints. Last minute plans included my friends Burn and Nomad to meet mid morning. On my way home I got a call from another friend M243. The four of us were to converge at the get in/ take out at 10.

When I arrived I immediately walked over and peered through the dense foliage and across the East Branch of the Sacandaga River and spied the last falls. It looked ideal, with a sheet of water splashing over the mid-stream portion of the falls.

Eventually the late arrivals made their way and started suiting up. M243 and Pure hiked down and paddled over to the bottom of CLC to wait. A short walk up to the bottom falls and I was surprised to see much more water coming down than what I had thought. M243 and Nomad are not familiar with this creek so I pointed out some of the nuances of the last drop. Even at high water there is a piton rock on the right that continues to be in play and the river left chute drops into a sticky hole.

We regrouped and started hiking up stream and as soon as I saw the next drop I knew that this was not going to be good. This is the widest drop on the river and it was completely covered. Everything from here on up is narrower and steeper. The higher flow would push one gorge into another. I knew this from experience. This drop we were looking at had cost me a boat and a friendship. I really miss that boat.

So, I called it. “This isn’t the day”, I said. M243 was gracious, Nomad and Burn looked relieved. The crux was the time and group size. Burn and I had paddled this at about this level and I had even paddled it solo and survived. However, there was the potential for the group to get too spread out with the less familiar getting left behind as the more experienced got flushed downstream. There would be no way to boat scout and give verbal descriptions before dropping into the many gorges. Then people would be forced to get out and scout from shore and this takes time that I didn’t have to spare.

We hiked back down the short ways and paddled out and back across. Regrouping, we hopped on the East Branch of the Sacandaga and had a great, and relaxed, paddle/surf session.

Cheers.