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River Depth at Francisco gauge = 1.33 feet Discharge = 74 cubic feet per second
June 17-18, 2006. For the
second year in a row, I celebrated Father's Day by kayaking in Kibler Valley.
This year we rented a
house for the weekend, which gave us plenty of water time, even if we didn't
actually have the water. I had hoped that the City of
Danville, in honor of Father's Day, would release water from the hydro station,
but alas, Dan River was the lowest I've seen it since I started kayaking.
It was a creek really. So while
the kids had a blast playing in the low water, my paddling was limited to a couple
of runs from the Hydro Station to the first bridge and
roll practice. I
finally found a name for the rapid just before the bridge closest to the Hydro
Station. According to Forrest Altman's
Adventures In The Dan River Basin it is called Public Enemy #2 and the
rapid between it and the station is called the Power Plant Rapid. There
wasn't enough water for me to paddle down to the third class III, Basketball
Falls, that makes up the trifecta of rapids in this first section, but the low
water did give me a chance to see what those top two rapids look like when the
rocks aren't covered with water. One hearty kid paddling a
Dagger made it all the way down to our house, but I have no idea how he did it.
He said that the only reason he came was to paddle, so that was what he was
doing. But I swear I don't know how he made it down the river at that
level.