annual icebreaker cruise
| River: | Haw |
| Skill: | All |
| Trip Date: | 01/01/2013 |
Icebreaker 2013—Ron Miller
Once again, my sense of tradition kicked in, this time for the planning of the club’s first trip of the year, our ‘Icebreaker Cruise’ on New Year’s Day.
Joining me this year was Scott Hughes, Camille Warren, Daniel Richardson, Barry and Julie Schmidtt, Andy Malinowski, and newcomer Robyn Narvessen Maness (Robyn christened her ‘new’ whitewater boat on this trip).This year, as part of my personal goal of paddling some of the lesser-used stretches of water closer to home, we selected the Glencoe put-in of the Haw River to start our new year. According to the county parks bulletin board, there are four accesses from Glencoe down to Hwy. 54 just south of I-40. We decided to paddle down to the third access (Red Slide Park), just upstream of Hwy. 70.
Weather conditions were cold and drizzly, water level was just a bit too low. According to the park info (which I photographed and have posted on my facebook page), a reading of 2.25 at Haw River’s USGS gauge is minimum for the 3-mile section between Glencoe and the Town and Country acces s(the 2nd access on the map). From Town and Country down to Red Slide, the minimum is less, and perhaps we had less dragging there. That is a very short stretch (1.1 miles), with a single minor rapid. On the upside, there may be potential for that spot to be used for training, particularly for beginners or novices—flat water leading down to the rapid which, while not intimidating, did have a decent feature for eddies, peel-outs and ferries. Our last update had us at 2.4 feet, but it had dropped below 2.2 by the time we put on, so overall we did our share of rock-dodging and dragging.
There was evidence that, with a little more water, this could be a really fun, easy section to paddle. Accesses were friendly, with decent parking overall. Scenery was a little sketchy. We passed a couple of old factories on this run, also spotted signs of habitation under a couple of bridges (including one campfire), which for me was a little discomfiting. Wildlife was minimal but not unexpected given it was a cold day in January—we did get a fly-by from a heron and some smaller waterfowl, though.
At the end of the day, we finished off with my other tradition: hot chocolate for all, with my special peppermint flavoring. This was a trip in which I think we all left with the thought: ‘there’s no such thing as a bad day on the river’. I hope this year offers many more such days. Happy New Year, everybody!