Exploring Tucquan Glen Near Holtwood

After a pretty routine and quick run down Muddy Creek on Sunday, Brenton, My Dad and Myself decided to check out some relatively unkown creeks in the Holtwood area that seemed to have some decent gradient. After some driving around and looking at the Topo map, we found ourselves on the Tucquan Creek, just north of Kelly's Run on River Road.
After some seeing a pretty decent drop at the top, we decided to hike along the creek to see what else was happening down stream. We hiked about a half mile down the creek until we saw the next interesting drop. It was a very narrow tributary to the Tucquan that had a lot of gradient coming down the mountain into the creek. Pending strainers, this would be a sick run into the Tucquan but it would take a tremendous amount of rain to bring it up. I doubt if its ever been run before.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the tributary.... it goes up way higher

We continued to hike down the creek for a while. Just when it seemed that there was nothing else decent on this creek we started seeing the potential class V water. These drops were very continuous, narrow, and at times, log choked. Still with this in mind, most of these rapids were runnable, but still have potential for pins. We don't really have any clue if this has ever been run. It seems like it would come up with a decent amount of rain, but we're not sure how much it would take to really run it. There is evidence that it does become runnable, but we don't know how often that is.

The First Solid drop we saw

Down stream view of a nice rapid

<-Upstream view of the entrance to the steep section



Downstream view->

After seeing this creek, RLP is definitely adding this one to their list. The next time a storm rolls through this are, we're there. The only problem now is figuring out a shuttle.

-Frank Landis

The New Left Tour in VT

So RLP has been laying low for quite a while again mostly because we've all been spending our time working and trying to pay our bills in these hard economic times. But besides working at our regular jobs we've also been working on our own little project. The New Left is a film that I've been working on for a good amount of time now and is due out by the end of June. The film will include some boating in New Jersey, West Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It also features some of the sickest creeking Vermont has to offer. I had returned a week ago from VT with a team that included TJ Crawford, Daniel Mayer, Tom Randis, Jason Mcmullen, and myself. We were lead by the imfamously known guide in Vermont, Ryan McCall.

The New Left!

The trip started out at Mclovin's house where we loaded up the tour bus and drove about six hours to where we met Tom Randis at a hotel in upstate New York. The next morning we drove another five hours to the West Branch of the Deerfield which was a sick class four creek with some good boof moves. TJ and I both had a rough time in the first rapid which was a series of boof moves which led into a narrow gorged-in hole. It was probably the hardest rapid on the river besides for Tunnel Vision which was pretty much unrunnable due to the low level. We drove the rest of the way to our hotel in Vermont and slept that night for our next busy day.

Chillin' in the back of Tour Bus! Haha.

The next day we did a quick run with Ryan on some creek (forgot the name already) and then went to do a run on the Big Branch which is comparable to the Upper Blackwater in West Virginia. It was a very low level but made the boofing but was all the better for boofing. We did have to walk a couple of rapids which included BLT and Cave Drop but the rest of the river was solid. We took off the river around eight and it was almost pitch black on the last rapid making it very difficult to see and extremely scary.

Jason boofing on the Big Branch.

We slept in the next day and then traveled two hours south to run Joe's Brook. Ryan had warned us that he had only run this at higher levels so he was unsure of what kind of dangers (sieves or undercuts) might appear down the river. Fortunately we were lucky enough to scout our way down the river in a timely manner and only had to walk one major nasty rapid. The rapid would have definitely been runnable at higher levels but all of the flow was going right into a sketchy-looking hole. The rest of the run was fun with nice big slides that are comparable to Swallow Falls on the Upper Yough. The last rapid was my favorite, it was series of small holes and waves that were seperated by wide turns through a walled in gorge.

Hippie Dan with the moves!

After an exciting night of partying in Montpelier Hippie and I decided that we wanted to go out with a bang and make our last run of the trip Middlebury Gorge because it is considered the crown jewel of white water runs in Vermont. Unfortunately, Jason and TJ were not at their best and Ryan had never ran the creek before so we backed out. Lucky for us we found something better. It's known as Texas Falls and it has supposively only been ran by a handfull of people. It looked good to Jason and I so we prepared for our run while TJ, Hippie, and Ryan walked into the gorge and got safety ready. One guy who met up with us earlier at the Middlebury Gorge put-in followed us there and propelled into the gorge to take pictures of us. You can check them out at http://www.kayakingphotos.com/. The run was successful and we got a good amount of video of paddling the gorge.

Jason running the Falls.

The trip ended with some minor partying and a long drive back while looking for some possible 1st descents along the way. Hope to tell you guys more about the trip at Cheat Fest. Until then paddle hard and be safe!