Re: Strainers As of 2009 November there are 6 river wide logs that can't be crossed. None are
dangerous to anyone who is comfortable on this river, but it means getting out of your boat six
times. I would put minimum at 115-125 cfs, but I realize there are issues with reservoirs. We did
it at 108 and it was ok but not a great level.

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there is currently a riverwide strainer a couple hundred yards down from the campground and a log
just below the surface in the last bend leading into the ledges there is a suspention bridge with
hiking trail (1/4 mile? boat carry to road hike trail to park area above GS camp) for those wanting
to make a class 3 trip.

After some discussion with other boaters, I got curious about relating the USGS gage with minimum
runnable level. It so happened I have some detailed topo of the streambed near the USGS gage I did
as part of my doctoral dissertation. I used these data to make a digital model of the stream at the
gage to see what flow would give a minimum depth.

It pretty much confirms what others have said; zero is probably between 80 and 100 cfs on the USGS
gage. An image above shows a plot of the HEC-RAS model of the shallowest part of the USGS gage site
reach with a flow of 80 cfs. Note that the maximum depth is a little over one foot. On the
principle that you can run the whole reach if you can float a boat at the first rapids at the
put-in, this suggests that the river below here is runnable. This isn't just paddlers' lore, it's a
principle of geomorphology that the channel is created by the hydrology, so as you move downstream
the channel widens, but contributions from tribs keep the depth similar. This all assumes rainfall
uniformly covering the watershed, so it's not all coming in one trib. Also it assumes full
reservoirs; if Staunton reservoir has been drawn down and the river is flowing into an empty hole
there may be no outflow at all.

Water the take-out is at least four hours later than at the USGS gage, so if it's rising or falling
rapidly, watch out.

Regrets, but I disagree on the location of the gauge plus the relatively new one which was
mentioned is, I believe, the same gauge we've been looking at. The "near Stokesville" part is
misleading. The gauge is actually upstream of the two reservoirs which in turn are upstream of the
gorge. If both reservoirs are full then I think it's pretty much water in = water out minus
municiple consumption.

we ran this for the second time at 85 cfs (and steady) on the Stokesville gage, with a light shower
the night before our run. I would call this an enjoyable bare minimum. Not much scraping after the
first 1/4 mile, and still plenty of fun. About 30% of that flow was coming out of the Little River
(the gage is below the confluence), so I am guessing only 60 cfs or so was in the North River. It
was -1" on the painted put-in bridge at the campground, so 0" on the painted gage is fairly
accurate, and I would guess most people would use this as their minimum. Keep a constant eye for
strainers on this run, although we only had to walk around one.

There's a relatively new gage at http://www.americanwhitewater.org/gauges/id/6817/ . The rumor is
that 100 or 150 cfs might be enough to make the North worth the trip.