gutter rock creek

[JPIMPIN101]

gutter rock creek is still fairly tree free... ran it friday afternoon and there were only three major trees blocking the creek.. one at the start of the gorge, one about half way thru the gorge and another around the cove creek confluence. a few other notable strainers existed but were passible at a put in level of about 8 ft off the dutch creek gauge at waltreak. at higher levels expect a few more portages! but overall was a nice run considering the number of trees down on most of the creeks. i was also wondering if anyone has ran the section of cove creek from the spillway to the confluence with gutter rock creek?

[godzillaws54]

Went and ran gutter rock yesterday with some people and looked at cove creek, came home and looked at it on google earth and looks like it's pretty mild but can't find anymore information about it online... if you find anything post it i am interested in finding out... it would be nice to hit 3 creeks right there within a few miles of each other.

[FarPastGone]

Fish knows about the stretch you are talking about. Not sure if he has run it or not. I have hiked down the spillway, but I think it would be bad news to attempt to run.

-Matt

[godzillaws54]

Ya, didn't really know what was waiting down the creek just always nice to have another prospect.

[Fish]

and furthermore... (no need to post twice) :)

[Fish]

I don't know of anyone who's run Cove Cr. below the spillway, but many years ago, we almost had the USFS (who controls the lake) talked into doing late summer releases for a couple of weekends into Cove Cr. when they draw down the lake. THey normally release smaller flows for about 3 weeks or so, but I had them interested in doing bigger flows for 4 days (weekends) - enough to run Cove Cr. It's a 100 fpm stretch of class 2-3 water - pretty cool looking. The plan hit a roadblock when someone at the city of Paris told USFS it would mess up their lake (which they use for drinking water). Despite the fact that summer and fall rains often flush more sediment into the lake than we were talking about anyway, that killed the deal since USFS was just doing it as a favor for paddlers. However, I don't think Paris appreciated at the time just how many kayakers such a release would bring to town... It would be a pretty nice event economically... the only thing like it for a long ways around.

I've been thinking lately that it might be a good time again for someone who is interested in reviving this idea to approach city of Paris officials and pitch the idea of having a whitewater festival that would draw in some nice tourism bucks for the town... They have the means to do it with Cove Cr. If you had some interest from the City council and from local businesspeople I bet it could happen. The impact on the lake could be studied in a flow study if there were concerns - but it's hard to see how it could be a big problem (certainly not bigger than a single rainstorm) and would be more than offset by revenue for local businesses. Would be neat to do a trial of it one weekend and measure the impacts...

Just a modest proposal. :)

- Fish

[prophet]

once would have been modest, twice, well..