Hanna's gift: A Sunday of stellar paddling

I was surprised to catch Paul Ferguson at home when I called yesterday morning. Hurricane Hanna had just dumped up to five inches of rain on the Triangle, swelling local rivers to levels paddlers haven't seen in at least two years. How could someone like Ferguson, who wrote the book on regional paddling (literally: "Paddling Eastern North Carolina," Pocosin Press), resist?

"I thought you'd be out on the river on a lovely day like this," I said.

The Haw just below the dam at US 15/501 Saturday afternoon. Expect a less intense seen on local rivers today.

"Maybe tomorrow," he replied. Today, he said, was perhaps a little too lovely. Or as Peter Lynch in the paddling department of the Great Outdoor Provision Co. in Durham put it, "The real thrill junkies are out there today."

Ferguson gave the Haw as an example of why he was content to hunker down in his home near Umstead State Park (he's a frequent mountain biker as well). "It depends on your preferences," he said. "The Haw is at 13,000 cubic feet per second and still going up [it would hit 26,000 cfs later in the afternoon]. When the water goes up, the eddies disappear." (Eddies being those pockets of calm that form behind large rocks, offering a moment's respite and time to regroup.) "And you've got the trash coming down the river, the tires, the refrigerators. You have to watch your backside."

"When the current is switft," he added, "recovery can be difficult." By recovery he means your boat; get bounced out of your ride and you and your boat could wind up in the middle of Jordan Lake. "Getting back into your boat can be difficult. You've got to have a bombproof roll."

The situation wasn't limited to the Haw. Crabtree, he noted, was up to 12 feet (it's generally run around four) and the Eno River at West Point on the Eno in Durham was running 7,500 cfs and up to 17 feet (the river can be run down to 120 cfs and at 2.2 feet). "It's out of its banks in some areas and throwing up big waves," said Ferguson.

Thus, Saturday was not a good day for running local rivers. Today, on the other hand...

The Eno, because of its small watershed, should drop a fair amount by Sunday morning. For casual recreational paddlers — those comfortable in Class I and II water — the Eno between Pleasant Green Road and West Point on the Eno, a distance of 8.5 miles, should be especially good. (River access at Cole Mill Road roughly cuts the trip in half, if you're short on time.) The upper Haw could also be friendly to recreational paddlers today.

More experienced paddlers could find good conditions on the Flat and Little rivers in northern Durham County and on the Rocky River in Chatham and Lee counties. The latter, though, is particularly tricky and may already too low to run today, according to Michael Carter, a Holly Springs boater who checked out the Rocky Saturday afternoon.

And there's always the dam-controlled Neuse, which is almost always runnable. Ferguson suspects the Army Corps of Engineers will begin releasing water from the dam shortly, which could make for good conditions throughout the week. Of particular note is the tailrace just below the dam. For about two-tenths of a mile downstream, the abnormally rocky riverbed makes for a popular play area for local kayakers. That will be especially true as the core begins releasing more water from Falls dam.

Ferguson says he's pretty sure conditions will be good today. Before putting your kayak on the stackers and heading out, though, he says you should do two things. First, check the U.S. Geological Survey's daily streamflow data to find how high your destination is and how fast it's flowing. If you're intimately familiar with the river and know exactly what those numbers mean, you needn't proceed to step two. But if those numbers are just numbers, you'll need a handy guide that puts those numbers in perspective.

Ferguson knows where you can find one.