Hepco

From Lee Thonus:

There are 2-4 put-ins for Hepco. I prefer to use the mini-gorge on Jonathan Creek. It starts off just above, in the middle of, or just below the short section of technical class 3. The water has constant current until the junction with the Pigeon 3/4 miles away. If Jonathan Creek is too low, you can put in directly on the Pigeon. The first mile or so is shoals, which is why most of the Hepco paddlers prefer putting in on Jonathan Creek.

From the junction to a rapid named “Wormy”, (nickname of a guy that I’ve never met) it’s a class 2-2+ version of the Pigeon gorge from Waterville to Hartford. Wormy is the 1st class 3+ (4 at 1100 cfs & up) and after Wormy the river narrows and the river intensifies. . The rapids are mostly class 3. The Broken Dam is, like Wormy, a 3+ and a 4 above 1100 cfs. Very few people know about this section of river and until recently there was no AWA writeup. The write up is nothing like the river that I have paddled so many times. The author uses a different put-in (adding a lot of flat water) and has a minimum of 250 cfs. I have always used 450 as a minimum (for other people). I have never run it below 650 and my personal minimum is ~700 cfs. Note that the AWA writeup calls “Wormy” “Island Rapid”. Kevin’s photos are pretty good.

Another piece of the picture; the Kevin / AWA takeout is tough. However about 150 yards upstream, on river left is Annette Chamber’s house and yard with a pretty easy takeout.  She goes to the same church as a paddling friend, through whom I met her. Annette and I have become good friends. Annette used to cook with a wood fired cook stove, which also partially heated her house. Such stoves need shorter cuts of wood (~12-14″) than  a normal wood stove or fireplace (16-18″). For a few years I, with the help of fellow Hepco paddlers, kept her supplied with the short wood. A couple years ago she switched to a normal wood stove that was oriented more toward heating her house and less for cooking. Last summer/fall on one day, I acquired 3 cords of hardwood  in 6-8 ft lengths and delivered it to her house, on subsequent days we cut it into burnable lengths and in the 3rd series we split half of it. She finished splitting it with a neighbor. It was enough to get her through the winter. The paddling community has thus become part of her extended family. We park a limited number of cars on the side of her lawn and tread lightly.

While Hepco does not have reliable flows, it does have an online USGS gauge in the middle of the run and 5 upstream flow gauges.  You can know if it’s running or not and to a certain extent predict future flows.