Established minimum Piney level for 14' oar rig

[Tim Eubanks]

The Mighty Hiney was 3.3 at dawn Saturday according to Debbie Moore or one of her trustworthy crew. I'd been told by Cap'n Downstream and Paddle!Paddle! Marcel that 3.2 or3.3 was minimum for a 14' raft. They were spot on. I had 2 regular sized adults and one of the very small variety as passengers in my 14' NRS oar rig. We had a great sunny run.

The put in at Heltons is much easier now in one important respect: no cattle guard to traverse!

Getting a boat over to river right is now much more difficult as there is a large tree top nearly blocking the outlet of the staging pool (or whatever we call it). I had to walk the raft around that and jump in. There is a tree just barely submerged and passable in the channel on river right. It had just eaten a canoe when we came around the corner and scraped over the tree. At 4' Monday we were able to go river left, barely..

All drops were open and fun. There is a nice rock between the Little Mother and the Mother that spun me around and gave the first-timers a nice ride, much to the amusement of a gaggle of on-lookers. It was also covered up Monday which allowed a classic left side run. No I did not catch the hero eddy either time.

There was an incident with one of Moore's guided rafts, but I will not comment on that here. All came out OK. I mean no passengers were injured. Maybe an ego, but that doesn't leave a mark.