Mighty Clinton River (MCR) !!: 1.84 Technical

More of that weird weather around, was raining hard in Detroit with lots of thunder, but it didn't hit the Northern river basin so the gage was only at 1.84 which made the run tight and technical on some of the corners! We put in around 6:15pm from Avon & Livernois. There were a couple of guys paddling Sit On Top's ahead of us, we never caught them. I put in behind the Doctor's office and Rob walked down to the bike path bridge. We agreed Rob made the better choice even with the longer boat carry. I had to get out at the stinky pipe portage, so Rob got ahead of me and didn't have to get in/out!

From there we had a few tight fast corners around the psychedelic tree and soon we were at Rochester Rapid. "Bulldozer" was running nice and I got in some great surfing! Voodoo rapid was also a good surf at this level. Just past 2nd Street and the eddy seawall as you make the right/left corners we had to limbo under that tree again. We'll have to deal with that eventually. Our next stop was Rock Island to portage the new tree that is down. We cut to the left early and carried our boats through the dry channel that makes it an island where we had planned to have a beverage break but the mosquitoes were so bad we launched as quickly as we could to evade them!

When we got to Stony Creek there is a new tree across the river from Left to Right onto the beach across from where the creek comes out. At this point I told Rob I thought the next possible portage was at the Vortex of Death, but I forgot about the other limbo log at the By-Pass just around the next corner! I tried to get low under it and leaned back but caught the front of my PFD as I pressed under and got off kilter, flipped and had to roll! After that the next trouble spot is indeed just before the V of D with a tree from Left to Right but only hanging down, so you can pick a line towards the right and if you stay straight you can pull through some branches to get through. (stay right of the broken limb)

We came upon a couple of deer standing just before the signs to portage the dam. After portaging around the dam we were done pretty quick. Loaded up Rob's truck and headed back to A&L for my Jeep when we came upon 3 guys who were picking up from their run from there down to Coyote's. They said there is a tree down between Yates and Ryan, closer to Ryan, like just before. I think I know the area and that will need a little work soon too.

Here are the pictures from today's run.

View looking back upstream at Stewart's rapid

2nd Street Seawall

Eddy Seawall

Limbo Log just past 2nd St/Eddy Seawall

Looking back at the limbo log, the tree on river right (left side of pic) could be a problem at high water if you try to roll under the log like Jarrett and I did last week.