Upper Farmington River, New Boston MA

This was our lunch stop our first day out.  It has been a long time since I traveled up RT 8 along the Farmington in New Boston. Back in the day when I was a younger guy with a more supple back and whitewater paddling was a way of life, the Upper Farmington was a staple of the fall season. A narrow technical Class 4 stream, one weekend in the late fall they would let out water out of an upstream lake to lower the water so lakefront property owners could fix their docks. A set release on a Saturday and Sunday brought paddlers from everywhere. It brought back to mind one of my favorite paddling stories about a one time on this river.

At this stage of my paddling life we would do both days of the release, camping out Saturday night. There began a thing where it was not good enough to do one or two runs, you had to do three. On this weekend I had hooked up with my buddy Neil Harvey and some of his friends from UMASS. It was declared that on the Sunday, we would go for FOUR runs in one day. We were up early, donning cold and wet wetsuits, first ones at the top and not messing around. We killed that river three times. As we finished we realized we were going to be short on time. We decided to half shuttle. To take the car to the top, and not waste the time to drop a car back at the bottom, just hitchhike when we were done.

We were at the top and it was obvious we were the going to be the last crew down the river. The light started falling, and as we went so did the water level. You had to hammer to beat the fading daylight and rocks scraping your boat. We ended just in time, pulling our boats out as the streetlight came on by the little store (now closed of course) at the bend of the river near where the bridge crossed.  We still,  had to get some drivers to hitch back to the top.

We gathered on the porch of the store and waited. No cars. It got fully dark, no cars. Then it started to rain, a cold November rain, no cars. Five or six guys, in wetsuits getting colder and colder. Then the rain started to mix with snow, no cars. It was freezing. Finally in desperation, Neil and I started to walk up the road, figuring if it was about five miles we could walk it in an hour and moving was better than standing and freezing, even if we were walking in neoprene booties..

We had walked about a half mile up river when we heard the sound of an engine coming up the road. Neil stuck out his thumb, and a van pulled over. The driver reached over to pop open the door and the cloud of pot smoke billowed out. "Hop in!"

We found seats and the guy, stoned out of his gourd, said over his shoulder, "Hey, that's a great idea you dudes have!"
"What idea?"
"Those suits! If you have to hitchhike in nasty weather like this, they're perfect!"
"No man, we are kayakers. We just finished doing the river."
"What river?"
"Just over the guardrail, it's a Class 4 river!"
"Cool, dudes!"

And we were saved.