Location: Steep Falls is located on the Saco River in Steep Falls, Maine. Where Rt. 11 crosses the river there is a parking area that accesses a small public area on river left. A well traveled path heads upstream and delivers paddlers directly to the falls.

Levels: We ran the river left route exclusively the day we were playing around at 4200 cfs on the Cornish gauge. Nothing was really surfable but the run was easily hiked and repeated, making for a very fun afternoon of dissecting a class III+ spot.

Location: The Limington Rips are located in Limington, Maine where Rt. 25 crosses the Saco River. I would consider the entire section to be “park-and-play”, but the most easily accessed portion is located next to the cul-de-sac on river right, This is the rest area mentioned above. Even when closed in the off season there is plenty of space for parking on the side of the road.

Levels: It is a good idea to check the levels on the Cornish gauge before heading to the rips. We played at the Rips at about 3600 cfs and the waves were playful but not as retentive as we would have liked. Fun front surfing day nonetheless. USGS gauge: Cornish gauge

Located in western Maine in a sleepy area known as The Forks, it’s a nice secluded area. Odds are you’ll see a moose either on the road or while you’re hiking. The first thing you’ll notice though is the staggering amount of rafting companies you’ll pass. Camping, cabins, hot tubs, and parties are generally the signs of the summer release schedule. And you might just notice the amazing amount of rafting companies that are entrenched in the area. It’s a pretty great community, and I implore you to stop at Marshall’s for a tall, tasty, and cold PBR pounder.

Enough about the merits of the town though. The dam above is where the good stuff gets pumped out. Additionally, it’s also home to one of the most amazing projects that has ever been devised (and supposedly paid for by Homeland Security) to move rafters and boaters to the river.

Behold the magic of the largest recreational stairway to the bottom of a gorge in the Northeast. It’s a pretty amazing marvel, and if you’ve ever been rafting here, you know that it’s a gift from heaven when there’s 50 other rafts trying to get down the stairs…. so…. incredibly…. slowly. But with a kayak, man, you can skip the whole line and get down there faster than Mark Sanchez and can eat a hotdog on the sidelines. Generally the release will be anywhere from 4500 CFS to 8000 CFS during releases in the summer. Generally the best place to glean that information is the rafting companies, such as New England Outdoor Center.

The first memorable rapid you’ll come to is dubbed “Big Mama and the Three Sisters”. Big Mama is a monsterous wave, the site of many kayaks becoming UFO’s from the amount of air they get (har har). Following that is a slightly smaller wave train, the Three Sisters. It’s really one of the best hits on the river, so make sure you enjoy it. Important to note is that there is a pretty dangerous spot, Goodbye Hole, on river right shortly after, so make sure you slowly make it left. There’s more than enough time to make the move, but it’s still one of the two spots in the gorge you’d like to miss. No photo for this lady, no good spots to get out. You’re just gonna have to imagine it.

After you head through what’s dubbed as “The Alleyway”, a nice constriction of the gorge that offers up some big waves and pulsing waters, you’ll get to Z-turn (right). This is basically the only play on the river, so enjoy it while you’re there. It’s a great place to stretch, catch the wave, do some front surfing, and take in the scenery. There’s a really great view of a little creek right across.

Just a note though: It seems to get a whole lot better as the release gets higher. The lowest I’ve ran it (and that the photo is taken at) is 4500 CFS. While it’s still fun, it’s difficult to stay on the wave and really doesn’t offer much in the way of dynamic fun. Still a great time however.

After your little break at Z-turn, you’ll run into the best hit on the river: Magic Falls and Maytag. Magic falls is the usual line, a straight shot into a river left foam pile that spit you out upside down more often than not. If you’re feeling good, go for the hero eddy immediately after on river left. If you get the opportunity, hop out and get a good view of the whole rapid. It offers up some nice scenery.

Magic falls (Foamy wave pile in the bottom left)

It’s really a great hit. The videos of Craig and I hitting it (not too smoothly I might add) give you a pretty good idea of what it’s like at 4500 CFS. I advise everyone to make sure they hop out and hike it once or twice. It’s really worth it. This rapid is also the site of the other major hole that you would prefer not to go into. Maytag, located slightly downriver in the middle, is just a nasty keeper hole until you get up to 8000 CFS. Not really advisable to try to hero this unless there’s a lot of water and you’ve taken a look at it. You can almost make it out in the middle of the photo below:

Dead center you can make out Maytag. If you’re running Magic, it’s pretty tough to get anywhere near it, so it’s not too big of a worry. Definitely worth getting out of your boat to take a look at. As was said, at the 8000 CFS release it’s runnable and probably super fun to punch through.

And Magic pretty much marks the end of the run. When the water is running fast, the whole thing can be over in the blink of an eye. Which means you’ll definitely want to run it again. And again. And maybe again. Three runs in the four hour release window is very doable. Look how fun it looks on the left. Craig is peeling out in a sweet little wave train. wouldn’t you want to do that again?

But sadly, you do need to get out of your boat, and you’ll come to a nice and steep stairway at Carry Brook on river left that has a parking lot for the shuttle. All in all, make sure that you get to experience the Kennebec once. Better yet, go for a weekend for a Dead River release AND a Kennebec release. You won’t be disappointed.

A big thanks to the (very concerned) shuttle bunny Mackenzie. She’s a DOLL. Craig is looking a little backed up though.

And a trickle there was. The most accessible put-in, one maintained for the canoe route, turned out to be where Route 193 crosses over the  river in Deblois. A pleasant view of an interesting boulder garden greeted us from the bridge, choked with wood, with a high water mark several feet higher than current flows.

Just being on the water was a great time, but it was difficult to keep your thoughts off how great it could be at high water. Numerous routes would open up with some excellent wavetrains. I’m thinking there might be a few good small drops and maybe some playable holes, but it’s difficult to tell exactly what it might create until we come back! There’s an ATV trail that runs along both sides for scouting, but breaks away from the river after some ways.

The small slot drop in the middle of the river offered up the HUUUGEEST boof of the day (ie not too big). Was really pushin’ the envelope dude, shredding the gnar.

So after an epic scratch drop past a fallen cedar, we continued the quest downward. It was a relatively easy run with such slow flow, and other than some boogie water for the next quarter mile or so, nothing too exciting cropped up until we hit the biggest rock feature that was practically begging for water to be going over it. If you miss the signs (which I imagine would be pretty hard to do), there’s a camp on the right hand shore, possibly uninhabited, that marks the location of the rapid.

It’s the first and only horizon line you’ll see on this stretch. There’s some nice gradient on the right fork that was the ideal run for the lower water, but the left drop is likely the reason to come back to this scenic stretch of water.

At higher water it’d be a drop I’d walk over and over just for the kicks. Was probably the single most bony runs my kayak has ever dropped, seeing as there was more rock that water. But still, it’s a beautiful feature with a small drop off at the end of the slide.

This was the highlight of the entire stretch. After the first mile or so of river, with curiosity driving us on, we paddled downstream for about 10 miles on the flattest water I’ve ever seen. Barely any flow. We had originally anticipated a few mile paddle to Schoodic Brook. But after paddling for some time and many map consultations, we decided the Schoodic Brook was nowhere to be found and enjoyed the sights of bald eagles, deer, king fishers, and the rest of the wildlife.

So we paddled and paddled, seeing power lines only once, until we saw a single house high on the left bank. Climbing through tall grasses, up a muddy bank, we eventually began to hike out on this individual’s incredibly long access road. a Lesson quickly learned was to make sure that your paddle is properly stowed when you plan on dragging your boat behind you for a few miles. So after realizing I was missing a paddle, and a nice mile jog or so back to retrieve the paddle, we made it to civilization: route 193. A great feeling to finally be back to the road, so we celebrated with roadside blueberries.

After reaching the road, we quickly found that our plan to hitch hike 6 miles back to the car was flawed. Apparently nobody picks up kayakers in Downeast, Maine. So the decision was made to stow the boats in the woods and keep thumbing it til’ we get to the put-in. After about 5 miles we hit the Wyman’s blueberry facility, and got a ride from a friendly staffer back to the bridge.

All in all, I think we’ll do the Whitewater stretch and hike back up through the woods next time.

]]> http://www.riverfunk.com/2009/09/narraguagus-river-deblois-me/feed/ 0 http://www.riverfunk.com/2009/08/powerplant-wave-orono-maine/ http://www.riverfunk.com/2009/08/powerplant-wave-orono-maine/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:54:33 +0000 tofumonsters http://www.riverfunk.com/?p=46 Just got back from Maine and found a sweet hole/wave right below the old Orono powerplant that feeds into the Penobscot. They’ve been diverting more water into it this year, making it plenty deep (minus one rock our sterns seemed to hit when getting wrecked) and has excellent eddy service. The best part though? The Enfield/Stillwater gauge from USGS is at about 7,000, bone dry as far as paddling goes for the Penobscot/Stillwater. Considering this wavehole is more fun than Typewriter (upstream in Old Town), it’s a pretty huge shock to have such deep waters and frothy foam.

Great for spins, blunts, loops, combat rolls (lots of them), getting window shaded, and and all around good time. The power plant does change flow pretty rapidly in small amounts as we found, it changes the play pretty considerably. These two pictures are basically the change in about two minutes from what I’d assume is an increase in flow which smoothed out the tiny wave feature in the middle, making the whole feature a wide ol’ hole.

I’ll leave it with a couple more pictures, but this is by far one of the best summer paddling around Orono. For those who know central maine, it’s probably one of the cleaner rodeo spots you’ll find up here and has the added bonus of running during incredibly dry weather. At least 5x better than Lower Gordon on the Mattawamkeag, without the awful eddy service and sketchy spots behind! There’s even a nice parking spot with an access trail if you take Mill St. (past Pat’s Pizza, which turns into Water St.).

Also of note is the recent construction of this spillway from the dam above the railroad trestle at the bottom the Stillwater. Looks plenty deep for a boof, but there’s that monster strainer that wouldn’t budge for us. They actually keep a ladder below one of the supports, so a two man operation could probably put in quickly before the dam caretaker can stop you. Entering from the top of the dam is probably a no-go, there’s two fins that divert water into it and are barely the width of a boat. Not worth getting killed for a spillway drop, eh?

Any questions on anything or for a few more pictures, drop me a line.