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Welcome to the Campfire |
| Cold Water and a Broken Blade on the Keswick |
 Mitchell mosies under the Haystack Rock Bridge at the put-in. Note the ice along the far shore, that water`s cold. |
 Looking upstream at the first ledge. I shipped some water here, and broke my paddle, and flipped in the eddy. |
 Hugh swings behind a rock in the background, while Willie slips into the vee. Still lots and lots of snow in the wooods in mid-April this year. |
 Ryan poses at the put-in. He`s wise, he`s wearing a dry-suit to protect against hypothermia. It was sunny but cool, and the water was ice. |
 Haynes Rapid is the last big drop on the Keswick. It was long and tricky, I ran it on the right. The flash floods of last December changed it, switched the rocks around, it seemed to me. |
 There is a large island downstream from Haynes Rapid, where folks usually stop for lunch and a rest.. There were two huge trees blocking the stream, only a last-second scramble got me to shore above them. I should have taken the river-left channel, it was straight and free of sweepers. |
Every paddling trip is like life, you should try to learn something new every day. Or at least, learn to use your common sense.
I didn't hesitate when Mitchell invited me along on a day trip on the Keswick River. Oh, it was still mid-April, and spring was just a snowed-in promise, but I grabbed my gear, threw… well, grunted ... my boat onto my car, and headed out. I don't like turning down an invitation to paddle, especially from Mitchell, he's a competent paddler and a good man to run the river with.
I didn't check my paddles, just grabbed two wooden ones, and tossed a change of clothes into a dry bag.
When we got to the river at the Haystack Rock bridge, I noted with a twinge of fear that the snow was still two feet deep in the woods. Even scarier was the two-inch thick sheet of ice that covered the still water along the shoreline in all the quieter eddies. Man, that water was frigid. And I had no dry suit gear, just a pair of wet-suit booties.
I should have checked the condition of my paddles as I was getting ready. The paddle I chose for the first set of rapids was cracked, a six-inch long break from the lip of the blade up along the lamination line.
The first major drop involved a four-foot slot between two rocks and then a straight run between boulders into a long rock garden. There was a convenient eddy just below the first drop that we planned to catch in order to scout the remainder of the rapid.
 Oops! |
Goodness, that water was cold. My boat filled up, but since I was in fairly shallow water, I managed to drag my boat off the rock and onto shore before it began to buckle against the stone. It weighed a ton or more with all that water in it, thankfully Mitchell ran over to lend me a hand. Since my bag was tied in, I didn't lose anything to the river.
I changed into dry clothes, and set off back into the river. On my first stroke, I discovered why I had missed the eddy. Half of my paddle's blade face was missing, broken off along the crack line. I tossed it into the boat, grabbed my spare, and made it down the river with no further mishaps … well, I did go over one ledge backwards hanging onto the gunwales, but got her straight again in time.
I`ve decided it`s best to just burn my cracked paddles in the campfire, and invest in new paddles instead of bringing the doubtful cracks on the river. Otherwise, they`ll surely break just when I need them the most. After all, they don`t break hanging in my shed over winter.
One other thing … I'm going to invest in a decent dry suit. My feet were ice-cold cherry-red at the end of the day. I should know by now, if you plan to paddle a stream in New Brunswick in mid-April, don't dress for mid-May, or you'll pay the price.
 Yes, we saw a turkey vulture (not this one) perched in a tree along the riverbank. What is it doing way up north here!? |
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