A two prong close call yesterday… Two friends and myself kayaked the Pigeon River Gorge (from Waterville Powerhouse to Hartford) yesterday afternoon.
We had a nice run, as the river was rising and was approximately 4,000 cfs instead of the normal dam release of 1,500. Once we finished we headed back to put in to get our car. As soon as we arrived, I heard a holler from the river and saw a kayaker swimming alongside his kayak in the Pigeon, immediately upstream of the put-in ramp. I then saw a second kayaker in the same predicament just 50 feet behind him.
Apparently they put on Lower Big Creek at high water and it spiked even higher on them. They estimated it was 6’ on the gauge (4’ is considered on the higher side). From what they relayed to me afterwards, they planned to take out at the church, but one rolled just upstream, and he rolled up and was unable to get to shore before the side of the river turned to stone embankment. He then ducked the bridge and went over the weir at the confluence with the pigeon river. I do not know if his buddy had similar issues getting to takeout or simply gave chase to his paddling partner. But he too ran and swam out of the weir.
When they floated by us, the pigeon river was now at approximately 8,500 cfs. They both called for help as they saw us and we saw them. I quickly got a boat off the roof and threw some gear back on and ran to the water to put back on the river to give support as the high water would make it incredibly hard to get to shore.
I have chase, scanning the shore to see if they got out, and communicated with spectators on the shore in case they saw the paddlers. At the Waterville bridge I decided to continue down. A boat was still 100 yards in front of me, the only spectator got to that location a few seconds before me and hadn’t seen the paddler, and a passerbyer had just screamed from his car window and waved me downriver. Solo I continued down.
I did not know that one of the kayakers got to shore not far below the powerhouse rapid, and the second not too far from the bridge. Both are incredibly lucky to have gotten this outcome.
For me the story didn’t end there though. About a mile later I came across two commercial rafters stuck 10 feet off the shore, clinging to a tree. They were very scared. I pulled over and gave assistance to them and stayed with them until they were safely on shore. I then continued down river in search of the kayakers (who were unknown to me safely out of the river). A (I think) private raft and shredder were downstream Eddied out and I directed them to work upstream to provide additional assistance to the two commercial rafters. About a mile downstream, I came across the rest of the commercial rafting trip who asked if I had seen the two rafters, quickly followed it up with “are they alive.” These two rafters as well, are lucky with their outcome as they got very separated from their Raft on a flooded river with (I assume) minimal to no whitewater experience (since they were commercial guests).
I quickly paddled the rest of the river, trying to once again catch up to and pass the kayak that had gone down river. At takeout, I assumed I had missed the swimmers and waited for the kayak and pulled it to safely. Just as the spectators from put-in showed up with the kayakers who were safe.
A few hours later the river peaked at 25,600 cfs.
So, in my mind there are two unrelated close calls and two lessons learned.
1) kayaking a creek (big creek) that has received substantial rain and currently experiencing a downpour is dangerous. If takeout is mandatory due to a weir immediately downstream, and the high water results in difficult exit from the creek, the creek should not be kayaked. Big rain events need to be respected and smart decisions made. Their poor judgement resulted not only risk to their own life, but also in my soloing the river at flood, chasing what I feared would be a resuscitation emergency, which put some degree of risk on myself.
2) the commercial rafting companies also should not have been operating like it was business as normal. I do not know what their cutoff is, but if the rafts cannot stop for a mile after customers swim, then the river is undoubtedly too high to be commercially rafted.
