The Flume (Housatonic River)

Ok. I think that the photos will tell most of the story of this sunny day on a fun rapid. (there is much more downstream, but I wanted to put the camera away and get into the boat tooo......)



The Flume is a very nice 7' drop that is intimidating because it is not straight.



but it is also not difficult if you can hit the center of the horizon line



the sides are super shallow, and people have hit their heads and face



but if you can hit the center (about 10' wide) and have a reliable roll, then you can just chuck yourself over the drop (you WILL roll about 50% of the time)



Here is local paddler, Bonnie, in her EZ doing the right to left approach



Maurice in his new yellow Pintail XL showing us how it's done



Kenny in a C1 converted Fish hitting the last cross-bow needed to set up the move



and Kenny again showing us just how deep the hole at the bottom is (don't worry folks, he pulled it out like he always does)



Steven's first attempt at the low-water, crossing boof move. If you screw it up, then you get pounded on the rocks. He didn't quite nail it perfectly, but he was able to deal with the minor line adjustments he had to make rather well. Terrific first attmept. This kid is good.



Jeff demoing the Critical Mass with a beautiful boof into the eddy.



Maurice firing it up again in his Pintail XL.



Ted rocking the Pirouette old school style, showing that long boats can boof too.



Jeff in his Crux firing up the creeky line.



Ted firing up the Critical Mass to show that light dudes can paddle the big boats too.



Ted pulling into the eddy (the kick back into the hole is pretty darned strong...)



and one last shot of Jeff, who wanted to give the Critical Mass another try. He was amazed at how "small" the boat paddled. (I guess that means that it turns well)