And here’s a favorite from George’s. The Fall colors combined with prime water levels… Hard to beat.

Chris miraculously runs a sneak route on river right.

Starting with Stairway (left), the run begins almost immediately (no boogie water warm ups for you old timers). My bud Chris, being the crazy guy he is, fires up the sneak route on Stairway, managing to boof some MEATY holes and barely avoided getting recycled. The rapid is one that changes dramatically, and the normal route down the middle over little niagra is pretty much unrunnable at the 7.5 feet.

Haven’t quite gotten to running staircase yet, but it’s one of the sweetest rapids that is: easily accessable, incredibly challenging, and containing several must make moves on this side of CT.

The title photo contains my personal favorite of the run, The Flume. At higher water, it becomes a simple slide into a V wave that combines your speed with the impact of a huge frothy foampile. Gradually as the water decreases, it becomes more neccesary to make a graceful river-right to river-left move to avoid dropping into some manky, shallow, and elbow hurtin’ pour-over water.

In the series (above), I’m going a little too far right, disappearing beneath the foam, and popping up on the left without rolling. The level, at about 4.5 feet on the boater’s gauge, makes it much more forgiving. At around 1.5 feet, the feature funnels the water at a much more pronounced angle, creating a technically demanding move. If you miss it, it’s probably gonna end up with some new scratches or a broken paddle. Right above Flume is a magnificent holewave that comes into full potential at around 5 feet. steep, sticky, and reasonable eddy service if you can hit your rolls.

Further down from flume is S-turn, followed by Pencil sharpener. Not entirely sure how to describe this without pictures, so it’s going to have to wait til the next trip down the housatonic. I will say there’s an excellent center boof drop of about 4 feet that has caused a few swims at around 4 feet.

After S-turn and Pencil sharpener comes one of the best playholes that I’ve seen in a long time, George’s Hole.

It’s a nice foamy pile that’s great for loops, effortless spins, and some epic king of the mountain games. The same day this photo was taken, Devin, a pretty great playboater, hand paddled in and did the cleanest loop I’ve seen in person. The wavehole is still present at higher water, around 5 ft or so, but it’s inconsistant and not conducive to much of anything. What that level does open up is a sweet little loop hole at the right above it at the bend where much fun is had if you’re up for the hike back up.

Chris surfin up a sweet loop hole beneath the bridge at 4.5 feet

Finally, after some boogie water, the end of the run arrives at the bridge. Fortunately at around 4 feet or so, it offers up a killer loop and spin hole. There’s pretty good eddy service and is definitely worth spending some time at before you hit your next run.

Bull’s has been a good run to me so far. Challenging whitewater, good people, and some big water for summertime flows. My car has generally smelled like stagnant riverfunk, a sign that it’s been a damn great time.

Til’ next Sunday,

Dave