River Access: Water Restored to Helpful C&O Segments, but Issues Elsewhere

In the last issue of the Cruiser, we reported on the restoration of water in the popular Pennyfield-to-Violettes-Lock section of the C&O Canal—and that continues, much to the delight of CCA's Sunday paddlers returning from the George Washington Canal Loop.

The C&O has now restored water to two lower levels—that above Swains Lock and that on down to the Great Falls Tavern. The 2.3-mile latter section is of greatest interest to the Canal National Historical Park (NHP), for the very bottom half-mile allows their tourist barge to give the impression of a canal trip before turning around at the upper end of the Great Falls parking lot. Our paddlecraft, however, can proceed all the way up to Swains Lock and return down the river even at levels below the current 2.7 feet.

The three-mile canal section above Swains has water running through it, but insufficient for anything but pack-rafters, two of whom we spoke to at Pennyfield in mid-June. CCA Access is after the NHP to fill this section to the brim, but their liaison guy has been TDYed to Ft. McHenry up in Baltimore Harbor, and is without a replacement here.

Meanwhile, another local access interest, Goose Creek, is running at a miserable 14 cfs, which underlines that low as they may be, the Lower Potomac and Canal are where the local action is.

Farther from home, two favorite runs—both touched on in the recent Cruiser—remain problematic.

Lower Gunpowder Falls Jones Road Takeout 

Paddlers who sent letters expressing concern about the ongoing closure of the only good takeout for paddling the Class II and III section of the Gunpowder received polite thanks-but-forget-it letters in return from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The response said the closure was "precipitated by public safety concerns raised by local law enforcement agencies, as well as renewed attention to the worsening conditions of the natural environment in this area." The DNR conveyed appreciation for the thoughtful comments submitted but offered no hope for reopening the takeout.

Cedar Creek

The gage on the creek near Winchester was showing a level that in these dry times seemed too good to be true—which, it turns out, was because the gage reading was being distorted by a blatantly unauthorized dam constructed below by a private landowner. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the agency responsible for this gage, would be making gage adjustments, the USGS said in response to questions posed on behalf of the CCA Access Committee. The gage is now back to a normal too-dry reading. What has happened to the illegal dam and its law-breaking creator must still be investigated.

—Alf Cooley and Larry Lempert