Vermilion

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. I was on the river early 5/17/09 with 2 friends, when water was about 20ft at Leonore (9ft at Lowell) and around 16000cfs. At these levels we expected Wildcat and the dam to be totally washed. We were erroneous in our forecast. The put in was irregular with about 3 to 4ft waves. The S-turn was beautiful… a solid 6ft+ wave (which we heard wiped out a raft). Wildcat was a nice wave train about 6ft+ (much bigger on river left) although there was not much of a hole present at this level. Finally, the NARROWS…… WOW…. I have never seen it so big. There were 8ft+ irregular waves everywhere. River right was a little smaller but still chaotic. Although risk was minimal due to the depth of water over the river bed I would still recommend re-classing this section at this level based on the power and unpredictability of the water. I RECOMMEND THAT NO ONE TAKE THIS RUN AT THESE LEVELS UNLESS YOU ARE VERY EXPERIENCED WITH HONED SKILLS….. OR A VERY STRONG SWIMMER FOR LONG DISTANCES WITH NO AIR.