Five ice breakers paddled 15 miles of the Sleepy Creek - the inaugural paddle of the CCA’s 2024 season. There was our leader, Ed Gertler with his long-time race partner Tom Irwin in OC-2 plus Barb Brown, Miki Komlosh and me in K1s. Luckily, the night before it rained, which made running the Sleepy Creek possible. At the meeting point, we delayed our departure for ½ hour inside ROCS at their cafe corner — until the rain lessened. We then ventured to the takeout where it stopped raining completely-- just in time to arrange the shuttle driven by Tom. Put-in at CR 8-1 bridge was at 11:30am. Time on the river was 4.15 hours (including lunch) for the 15.5 miles of beautiful scenery (farmland and deep cliffs with beautiful rock formations dotted with waterfalls and fun elbow/s-turns).
At takeout, we said goodbye to our friend Tom, who was on his way home to Pa. Barb, Miki, Ed and I dined at the Shepherdstown Chinese restaurant and followed it up with robust rounds of contra dancing across the street in the town hall. The hardy adventuring women did not get home till late night 11 or midnight! Ed stayed out and paddled the Back Creek for 21 miles on Sunday.
We estimated the cfs at around 350, which is a lower level but still runnable with just a few scraping/shallow spots.
A beautiful time was had by all.