Farmington

Tariffville Gorge at 5.5-5.6 feet...

At 5.5 feet, the T'ville park 'n play spot is where the dam was. Andy Kuhlberg is dead on about the good surfing there. Ran into him there and tried it all out. Good eddy service for the small wave (~2 foot, named 'velcro'?) on river left, and if you're lucky you can ferry onto the bigger waves (5-6ft) in the center of the river. Not easy in a playboat though... an Axiom or Pirouette ought to manage it very nicely. You can also carry up, paddle into the flow and try to catch it on the fly, but it's hard to slow down enough to stay on the wave. Andy caught a good ride on it on his last pass today. There's also a good secondary wave just behind and surfer's left of the 2 ft. wave that's not too hard to catch.

And at 5.5 feet, there is as much water flowing through T'ville as the Kennebec on a normal release day, so it's very fast, with some big water boils on the eddy lines, reminiscent some of the squirrely eddy lines on the Ottawa.

Up at the normal play spot, the water is in the trees and with a little effort you can ferry into Klingon, which is about a 5 ft high wave hole with a big foam pile. And Pencil Sharpener, behind it, is a somewhat lower wider wave hole. Looks like it could be a lot of fun once you get past the intimidation factor. Andy and I each tried it a few times. It's very easy to bust through everything... not retentive at all. Definitely could toss you around some though. But beware that you have to paddle pretty hard left to get into the eddy... I rolled on one pass and washed down over the small ledge at the end of the pool before I could get back over to the left.

Be very careful about running down from the playhole to the dam site. Others have posted about the very large hole on river right, just at the top of where the dam pool used to start. At 5.5 foot, it looks very very uninviting. Even getting past it on river left is not so simple. There is a sizable swirly eddy on river left just above the drop, formed by some rocks on the left, that is not too hard to get into. From there, there is a sneak route on the left bank that Andy and I both took but we had to get over/past a 6' partly submerged log blocking access. One could also go just to the right of the rocks forming that left eddy, but at this level even the water on the approach to the drop is very boilly, and there is a seam you have have to get across that looks like it could stop you, especially in a smaller boat. I don't think anyone knows yet how retentive the hole on river right is, but it looks like it could give you a thorough thrashing at a minimum (think Phil's right side on the Ottawa). I'd say that spot is definitely class IV and on the way to class V at 5.5 ft.

You can hike up from the dam and get somewhat of a view of that drop from below, but it's hard to see the details, so definitely exercise due care. At the dam itself though, although the water is boilly and fast-moving, the wave play is a III-III+. You just have to manage the boils and work to get back to the sides of the river.