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Discharge and Gage Height near Francisco, NC
December
31, 2004. Jeff
and I had planned on hitting some flat water in Cana, but when the weatherman
said sixty degrees we just had to change our plans. I've ran the Dan
through Kibler Valley more times than I can remember, but always in a canoe and
not in the last eleven years, so I couldn't wait to try it out in my new kayak. We put in at our friend Martin's river
house about 1.25 miles below the hydro plant and ran a
stretch of the Dan
River's head waters that make up the bottom 2.5 miles of the Kibler Valley River
Run. A few good falls, mostly Class II and Class I the whole way.
Not enough water to float over all the sections, but you could bang your way
through if you had too.
When we finished that leg we decided to run the upper portion. We were
still warm and dry, plus everything had went really smooth so far. So we shuttled up to the basketball courts just below the hydro
plant and put in there. That allowed me to put in just above Basketball
Falls and Jeff to put in below the upper portion and still get to run the lower
half. I managed to stay dry through Basketball Falls even though the skirt popped off the rear of the cockpit just before I hit
it.
I then found out that the
camera's batteries died while Jeff filmed my run, so I had no choice but to
press my luck and run it one more time. The second run wasn't as clean, I
was backwards above the falls and had to use a rock to turn me just in time to
setup the line. I again stayed dry and was pumped
up for the rest of the trip. The skirt problem nagged me in a couple
of other rough spots and we later decided that the high seat back would have to
go before we hit whitewater
again.
The final run was right at one mile and it was all new to Jeff. He was in
his new 11.5 Blackwater and left me behind as I kept getting hung up on the
rocks. The water was perfect and we pushed through in great time. It was an incredible day and fantastic weather for December.
River Depth at Francisco gauge = 1.83 feet Discharge = 226 cubic feet per second
You can watch a short film from the December 2004 Paddle On The Dan In Kibler Valley (4.8MB)
