Big Pine Creek
Rainsville to Twin Bridges (0.5-6.7 miles)
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportKayaked the full run from rocky ford to the bridge on 5/2/20. Level was somewhere in the 400-500cfs range on the USGS gage. It was scrapey in some places but overall very runnable. The first mile or so is the best part, some good surfing to be had at S-turn. Very pretty and relaxing float down the rest of the river with a few play spots and rapids scattered throughout the run.
A nice day on the BP
On 1/22/2017, 12.1 ft/1940 cfs at Pine Village was just over 4' on Rainsville Bridge. A correlation from Ed R. Pine V. = Rainsville Br. (ft = ft): 13' = 4.5'; 12' = 4'; 11' = 3'; 10' = 2'.5'; 9' = 1.75 to 2.0'; 8' = 1'; 7' = 0.5'
Josh Struble doing spins and playing the hole on S-Curve. Really nice playable hole at about 1.5 ft in the bridge guage. 10-14-14
I ran this 5/10/14 (@173 cfs) out of desperation for some swift water, being based out of the flatlands of Champaign, IL. Just ran a 'PnP' from the twin bridges take-out and attained a 1/4 mile or so until the last three sets of ledges, there was just enough water to dig a blade in and ferry across the little waves. With the beautiful weather it was certainly worth the drive! Especially if you were coaching a beginner or for someone like me trying to get comfortable with eddy turns and ferrying in an open boat (recently traded in my LL playboat for a canoe when I moved to Illinois). The last ledge I was able to surf with my dagger impulse! This was the bare minimum level, but I'd go back at 200 cfs for sure. Looking for new paddlers to meet up with since I'm new to the area, let me know if anyone's going there in the future! Taylor.strohmeyer@icloud.com
The lower WW section of the Big Pine from the Harrison Bridge (Below the confluence of the Mud Pine and Big Pine) to Twin Bridges, can be run at much lower levels than the Rocky Ford S-curve section. Down to around 200cfs on the Vermillion gage. It offer some fun class 1 Rapids and ledges with good easy surfing and is a very scenic paddle. In fact this section is excelent when the upper section is getting too low to run. Around 0.5? on the Chuck Weis (Rainsville Bridge) gage.
A little 'Zooming' on a cold Indiana day.
Rainsville, IN Bridge Putin (Chuck Wies Guage) 1 FT
USGS Guage upstream at Pine Village was at 7.62ft 533 cfs