Kindly Old Dr. K’s Hydrosphere

A moderate rain falling on the remnants of our record-setting snowfall in the Mid-atlantic region produced a big spike in flows in the lower Potomac this week.  It didn’t quite measure up to the catastrophic predictions but it was still a significant flow event.  It calculated out to about a five-year frequency, i.e. you can expect to see flows at this level about once every five years.

Here are some pix of the rising limb of the hydrograph; the Little Falls gage was around 8.3 on Saturday March 13 for these pictures.  The next day it went up to 13+ and I stayed on the bank.

A party ready to take off at the put-in. Jenn, is this you?

Waves at Skull Island. These only form at high water. For scale, the vertical dimension from trough to crest is about 8 feet

Maryland Chute is almost gone at this level

The big island separating Maryland and Center chutes is getting covered. Lots of rare creek lines through the island.

We just got a record snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic and the area is still digging out.  I took a chance that the river might be accessible despite lots of roads still unplowed, and it paid off.  The parking lot was a bit of a challenge but it was good to go.  I was alone until I was almost ready to drive away after paddling when another group of desperate boaters. showed up.

Here are a few pics of the Potomac surrounded by two feet of snow.

The lower parking lot at Anglers Inn

The C&O Canal towpath was snow-covered but usable, thanks to the xc skiers.

The obligatory self-portrait, to prove I was there.

Cupids Bower, just above Anglers

Maryland Chute in the snow

Another party heads for the put-in

 Not long ago I got a CD that contains several decades of the Cruiser, the newsletter of the Canoe Cruisers Association in DC.  In perusing the old issues I came across this item, which I had forgotten about.   This is from August 1974.

What Jim didn’t say in the article was that we owed the new move to a boat innovation.  The boats we used were an early batch of Hollowform River Chasers, taken from stock at Appalachian Outfitters, where Jim was store manager and I was a clerk.  This batch had been disastrously under-cooked and were as flexible as saran wrap.  They were un-sellable death traps for river running but we decided to take a couple out to see if we could get some fun out of them.

What we discovered was that if you plugged hard into a wave or hole the entire bow would collapse down onto your legs like a pair of too-tight pants, the air blowing out the top of your skirt explosively.  The skirt would then re-seal around the waist making the flat bow semi-permanent.  With no volume in front and loads of it in the stern the boat was stable in a vertical position.  We found we could spin down the eddy line for long distances, standing on the foot braces and pulling cross-bow after cross-bow. 

Thirty-one years later I applied this experience when I started learning to playboat.  There are a lot of similarities in handling characteristics between our old flexy River Chasers and my modern playboat.  The world does seem to move cyclically.

Internet disclaimer.  Since there’s no such thing as putting too fine a point on anything on the net, let me say it plainly: I don’t really think we invented playboating that day.