Mighty Clinton River (MCR) !!: June 2013

Plans were to meet at Stony Creek Eastwood beach for some rolling practice this morning, but the plan has changed! Doug wanted to get this going but he had an accident on his mt. bike and got 15 stiches between the thumb and forefinger, was told not to get it wet for a week and it makes it sorta hard to hold the paddle! LOL! We were still going to meet with a few of us, but the recent rains have put the gage back up and water levels beckon us to the river!

So today we will drop gear at Avon & Livernois, then drive down to Coyote Joe's on Ryan and drop cars at 11am for the shuttle. We should be launching around 11:30am. Should be about a 3-4 hour trip with stops.

Below is a picture of the gage this morning and then a video from Brian showing how they manage the gages!

They said on the news the yesterday morning we have had 6" of rain this June, compared to last year we only had 1.5"! And June is not over yet! We got a lot of rain yesterday, it was storming in the D with large cracks of lightening! I made some posts on Facebook but no one got back with me until this morning. I made plans to paddle with Rob after he got off work at Noon, then Jarrett called and could only make an early run, so I ran with both of them - 2 trips today!

Jarrett and I met at 9:30 and were on the river by 10am. We encountered our first portage just a few hundred yards from the A&L put in, just past the stinky pipe but before the bike path bridge. You probably could have portaged on right but we ferried across to river left and dragged our boats across where the river had gone the day before, the water had washed all the weeds down flat. There was a log across just after the bridge, but you could boof over it or go on river right where the little surf wave is. Soon we were paddling past the psychedelic log that seemed to have shifted but on my 2nd run when I looked I'm not so sure it did. Rochester Rapid, or Bulldozer as some call it, was too big and washed out to get on for a surf. From there we made it quickly through the scary corridor, past Paint Creek and Jarrett caught a nice surf on Voodoo rapid, I missed it! The big tree in the river by the Compound was gone and the tree that has been in Kak rapid for about a year now is gone! Kak Korner would be good for pop ups again, but I don't have the right boat - too much volume to get a pop.

After that we went along 2nd street and found a tree across the river where you make the turn toward the picnic area. Rather than portage Jarrett and I rolled, drifted and then rolled up on the other side! That was better than portaging, Rob and I did a limbo under it on the 2nd run, water dropped a little. After that we stopped on Rock Island, and found out there is a tree across from river right onto the island towards the end where there was a log pile across from the island. This left one more portage at the bypass where we got out on river left and jumped back in again without too much trouble. Of course we portaged the dam, it was high and the backwash was looking very powerful!

I ran Jarrett back up to A&L to get his car and drop my boat for run number two where we met a guy getting ready to launch solo in a 12' rec boat, I didn't get a good look at it but it looked kind of like an Old Town Otter II set up for one. He decided to wait until I would get back with Rob. By the time I got to Yates to wait for Rob, a couple more people arrived at A&L. When Rob and I got there it turned out to be Dawn & Paul who I have paddle with before, but we warned them the water was very pushy and so they opted for a Yates to Van Dyke run where we saw them launch later. The other guy also decided the water was a bit too high and that since he wasn't familiar with the river it might be a good idea to stay off.

Rob and I had a nice 2 hour run, pretty much like the run I just did with Jarrett, except this time I caught Voodoo and it was a nice surf!

When we got to Yates I could have jumped in with Paul & Dawn, but today is my Mom's 88th birthday and there were plans for dinner so I did not. Another truck pulled up with 2 tandem kayaks and a guy with his 3 kids, they all had PFD's and we warned them of the river and what to look out for and to "lean into" or downstream if they hit anything. Hope they didn't have any problems. Cher and Melissa left messages they were doing the Yates to Van Dyke section or somewhere around there and wanted to know if it was open. It should have been but after a storm you never know.