A Quickie Video of Water Levels
I visited the Shopping Cart area and Six Mile Falls today and took some video footage.
Click here to watch the 2-minute video. (Nothing fancy, but it gives you some idea of the volume and swiftness of the stream.) Will be interesting to see how much this changes by race day.
The fellow standing near the Shopping Cart is Bob Martin, who thought it would be wise to stick to river right and hug the bank going through the Shopping Cart. If you get sucked into the Shopping Cart hole....watch out!
Labels: media, stream reports, updates, video, water levels
posted by Michael Alden @ 6:01 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Where exactly is the shopping cart? Is that after the long mandatory portage to the left near the end?
The video is awesome!
The Shopping Cart is just upstream from the bridge at the Harlow Street/Valley Avenue intersection. This area has been known to surprise many novice paddlers who do the Kenduskeag, because they think the worst of the rapids are behind them and then....BAM. A little "stinger" towards the end of the race. Well, this year the Shopping Cart looks downright treacherous!
By the way. The "Shopping Cart Hole" got its name from the many shopping carts which were dumped into the stream by teenagers, vagrants and who knows who else (there were many smaller markets in the area in those days, before supermarkets took over). The stream saw a cleanup effort some time ago and over 30 shopping carts were pulled out of this area of the stream.
Hey Mike river clean up also pulled a car out of shopping cart hole back in either 93 or 94. well it wasn't much of a car anymore. Just a rusted frame. I remember it anyways, it was the year I hepled with the river clean up. Water level looks still high today but appears to be dropping at six mile falls. Could just be the low tide. if any one is braving six mile today try putting in up around the train track bridge where the smoother water is. the water above six mile looks like it might be a slighty worse run then the falls. I really can't get a good angle from the bridge.
Yup, I was definetely caught in that BAM you speak of. Square into the shopping cart. How the heck are we going to pass that? Same with the falls? Any recommendations of paths?
Hi Mike, and paddlers:
When our small group of 6 Gonzos from Nova Scotia first came down in 1996 we did not know the 'local' name for the shopping cart. Thinking Six Mile was the be all and end all from watching on the telie over the years, we were surprised by this gem. We named it at the time 'The Thunder Hole', which we still refer to it as such--to the total blank stares of Bangor locals.
From the excellent video, Thunder Hole may not be a bad description, eh!
Our group is smaller this year, back to about 7 from our 16 paddlers over the past 4 or 5 years.
Looking forward to meeting old friends.
Cheers
Bruce Duffy
well the blank stares are from the people who know/think thunder hole is in acadia N.P. but yeah I can see where you get thunder hole from. also here is an article from BDN this morning http://www.bangordailynews.com/news/t/outdoors.aspx?articleid=148884&zoneid=28
About the Shopping Cart (aka Thunder Hole to our friends up in Canada):
A gentleman by the name of Bruce Martin scouted the area while I was there. We got to talking, and he said that you'd probably want to stay river right at the Shopping Cart - stick closely to the right shore.
I can see what is going to happen, though. A lot of tired paddlers are going to end up being sucked towards the middle of the stream and that is when they will meet the Thunder God, who lives in the Thunder Hole.
Bob Martin said it is "doable" but it will be a challenge. He's looking forward to it, but he's a veteran paddler. Novices may run into some trouble. But then I suppose that could be said about any part of the stream this year, really.
Glad to hear that the Gonzos will be making their way to Bangor again! Maybe I'll see you on Friday if you are scouting the stream. I'll look for the "4Stroke".
Thanks for the article link, Pat. I'll post that on the front page later today.
From my years of paddling the keg my under standing is you got valley ave, the corner, then it goes in to shopping cart where the gorge wall is on RL then after the ledge that is usually there you got stevey wonder wave 20yards up stream on RL then that section is the ender hole witch is usually RR, but any ways me and friends paddled from bulls eye to flower mill the wave where so big that at one point all I saw was the tiptop of my friends helmet. then we jumped in at the corner and boogie-boarded down and right into the meat of the ender hole we got tossed like any other hole but if any one swims during the race its going to be a long swim. throw bag are almost out of the question. we did 6 mile today its been a year sine i did OC2 we made it 3/4 of the way down and got tossed to our off side in a hole. we swam about 500yd after the bridge i got my boat to what it thought was an eddy but it was over my head and was surrounded by bushes so i had to push it out in to the current and avoid trees until I found decent shore. if any thing the keg is like the dead at high water there is just no getting to decent and safe shore with the water up past the trees. When we threw throw-bags the force of the water was so powerful you didn't even know when the person let go. so untill i drops about 4 feet its going to very dangerous out there for all the novices and experince paddlers. So for this year they need more safty then ever and different types of safty. Every one be safe look out for strainers and have fun. see you all on the river!!
I ran from 6 mile to I-95 with the Gonzos today and it was pretty good. Nothing too crazy. If you stick RL or RR during the rapids its pretty cushy. The water has definitely gone down since yesterday probably close to 2 feet or more since the storm ended.
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