The Thursday trip of 16 March, cancelled due to bad weather and dry creeks, eventually morphed into an impromptu paddle down Rock Creek in Washington DC on Sunday. Mark, Larry, and John paddled from the parking area above Military Road down to Pierce's Mill on the absolute peak of runoff from Saturday night's rain on just under 200 cfs. This is a beautiful little creek dropping fast through boulders for the first half mile of the short run. Ettinger (2013) gives the gradient here at 100 feet per mile. At this low level, Rock Creek is technical with lots of tight maneuvering. The last day of winter, the mosses on the rocks were already greening up and the masses of ornithogalum were emerging on the banks. The creek runs through dense forest and the parkway is closed to traffic on weekends, heightening the sense that one is somewhere wild not a mile or two from downtown DC.
We had one minor adventure when one of our party decided to test the gaskets on his dry suit in a hole just above a strainer. No leakage was reported. An earnest onlooker on the other side of the creek at the takeout shouted at us that paddling on Rock Creek was illegal and started calling on his phone. His authority was unclear and his facts was wrong (see americanwhitewater.org) so we thanked him and moved on. We saw a few strainers. Keep an eye out for fallen trees. In the future I would prefer to find Rock Creek at a higher level, 300 plus cfs, and to do more than one lap of the fall line section. Tis a fun little creek in a beautiful forest. Trip was rated 10/10.