Fox

Hit this Monday (June 8) with Appleton gauge at 7000, and KU reporting 'total gate opening' of 6', which they translate as 1850 cfs in the bypassed channel (the river). This is about half the flow planned for the four scheduled releases (scheduled at 11'/3340cfs). At this (6'/1850cfs) flow, Ten Boat Wave did not really exist, but Island Street Wave was a pretty sweet surf, allowing a few good spins before I flushed (not regainable) and headed down. Took the left channel and had a few (mostly tame) surfs on various wave/holes there, but nothing too good or exciting, and nothing regainable if I missed or flushed, thus found that side mostly frustrating. At end of island, paddled 'upstream', across to the new landing below the right channel, carried up to put in from the cement shoulder under Elm Street (southern bridge) to play 'the Trolls'. Leftmost was lame/tame/unplayable, one of the center ones looked a bit intimidating (a bit too 'flippy' at this flow), but the other center slot and the rightmost 'troll' were SWEET (though admittedly a tad shallow) for a fine variety of surfs and spins. There was definitely some scrape heading down toward the right side of UGH (the 'Uniforn Gnarly Hydraulic'). No problem dropping through the right at this flow, but the center/left side was definitely (as almost always) boily/keepy. At this flow I was able to (very carefully) boat-scout various locations on the 'ogee wall' (the lower dam) by maintaining an upstream ferry and paddling near enough to see over/beyond the dam. (THIS WOULD NOT BE SAFE/FEASIBLE AT RELEASE LEVELS!!!) I ran a few routes I had never explored before, and then headed to the 'Mystery' or 'Hidden' channel, and found the wave there to be EXCELLENT! Very nice pile to the left, smooth glassy to the right. Not regainable in boat, but it was definitely worth carrying up two or three times to relaunch and replay this fine big powerful wave! ************************************************************************************************** Bottom line (at least for me, on this day) this was TOTALLY a fun level, and I look forward to hitting it on some of the release days!