OK, the rain was crazy! Instead of low runnable, the Fish jumped overnight. At the time of our meeting it was over seven feet (hmmm a bit higher than I would like) but later that morning it was at 8.5 feet and still going up. It went up to an estimated 30 year high of more than 10 feet on Friday (about 4 feet higher than I would be comfortable running it). Pulaski NY declared a state of emergency. The take out ladder was partially washed out that day. Locals were saying stay away. All kinds of river gauges were coded "blue" on the AW site (above recommended). The Indy went up over 2000. The highest I have ever run the Indy is 1000 and usually its in the 600s when I run it.
But how would we know? We were in our cars headed to the river.
Fortunately, I got a helpful "heads up" call on the off the chart high water from Bill S. Bill had to cancel on the morning of our trip and he kept watch on the gauges at home. We ran through the options bearing in mind we were with play boats not river runners or creekers (the Moose was up over 7 ft) and so our group of seven paddlers (Annie, Sandra, Ken, Jacques, Adrian, Dirk and myself) made a course correction en route over to the St. Regis Silver Staircase (Larry W has talked about this run for sometime but never done it, he he he!).
Sweet 12 k continuous Class III run, surf waves to catch on the fly, one Class IV rapid that is easily portaged and with only 100 meters of flat water. It's located just west of Potsdam NY and about 2 hrs from Ottawa. We put in at a park and we took out at a roadside park, complete with picnic tables and fire pit.
Great fall run with a great group and finished off with pizza from the wood fired ovens at Mamma Lucia's in Potsdam.
Can't ask for better than that when playing hooky. But I just want to publicly say thanks in a big way to our thoughtful and vigilant Bill who made the call and so we had not just a fun day but a safe one.
Quite some time ago when I took up paddling my wife said no problem as long as I joined a club where people look out for each other. Friday was a great example of that. Thanks Bill!
