When I plunged into the foamy water, I knew I was in trouble.
As I sank deeper, I could feel my kayak being sucked into the backwash beneath the falls.
“What am I doing here?” I asked myself. “I’m too old for this stuff.”
I had just dove over the nearly 20-foot Billings Falls and had my hands full. I counseled myself to keep my head and try to roll.
I set up to roll. I thought I felt the top of the water with my paddle, so I made an attempt.
Nothing!
The water was so aerated that there was no purchase for my paddle, and it simply sank straight down. I tried to set up again. This time, I was so deep into the hydraulic under the falls that I was unable to even set up.
I had experienced this once before on the Youghiogheny River in Maryland. Trying and failing to roll under these circumstances is so mentally and physically exhausting that it completely wipes you out.
Then, you’re less able to rescue yourself. I told myself it was time to bail out and save my energy. I pulled my spray skirt and wiggled out of my kayak. I swam straight down, hoping to catch a downstream current in the denser water at the bottom of the falls, and propel myself up and beyond the backwash. If I could, my son Adam, who had already run the falls, might help me from his boat.
When I hit the surface, I was still in the backwash and felt myself being pulled back. I took the strongest swim strokes that my energy allowed, and then I was free.
Until you have been underwater and deprived of air for an extended period of time, you never realize how sweet it is to breathe.
I was physically spent, but just as I hoped, Adam was there in his kayak. I grabbed it and held on while he pulled me ashore.
A few moments later, my boat and paddle flushed out from under the falls and we were all reunited on a rock ledge deep in the Gulf Hagas Gorge.
There were five of us – four kids and myself. I say kids, because one was my son, and the other three were young enough to be my sons. I was reminded of the old whitewater axiom – “There are old kayakers and there are bold kayakers, but there are no old bold kayakers.”
If I weren’t careful, I was going to prove this adage.
Rick was next over the falls. He’s bigger, stronger and younger than I, and it looked like he had a perfect line.
Instant replay!
Sucked into the backwash, he thrashed wildly in his unsuccessful attempts to roll. No luck. Another rescue was needed. Adam was getting tired just from hauling out swimmers and boats. Fortunately, Daryn and Greg had clean runs.
This was our third waterfall in less than a half-mile, and there were two more. Worse, the waterfalls were reportedly the easy part!
Located in south central Piscataquis County, Gulf Hagas is arguably the premier paddling creek in the Northeast, and the book, “Steep Creeks of New England,” rates it as Class V in difficulty.
Gulf Hagas is actually the name of the gorge which the West Branch of the Pleasant River flows through.
It is often called the Grand Canyon of the East because it is so spectacular. But, we were too busy to enjoy the views. The hike along its cliffs is one of the truly outstanding Maine wilderness hikes.
Ironically, it was one of the first family hikes that Adam went on when he was about five. As we hiked above the waterfalls, we never dreamed that one day we’d be kayaking them together.
A lot of things have changed. On that trip, he became so tired from hiking that I had to piggyback him out. Now, he was rescuing me in the whitewater.
To reach the Gulf Hagas area, take Interstate 95 north to Howland, and then Route 6 west to Milo. Travel north on Route 11 until you have driven about five miles past Brownville Junction, where there is a sign for Katahdin Iron Works on the left. Follow that road for about seven miles to a gatehouse, which is owned and operated by a private landowner. Here you must register and pay a road use fee.
This is the site of an old iron works, and is worth taking the time to explore. It is about another seven miles to the Appalachian Trail and a large parking area, which is the take-out for the whitewater run and the beginning of the Gulf Hagas hike. Traveling in a westerly direction, the put-in can be found at the end of a right turn about five miles further along the road. The best advice that I can give is to do the hike first.
If you’re not very comfortable with the prospect of kayaking what you can see from the cliffs, don’t even think about putting on the river. What you can’t see truly is more difficult. Further, this river should not be run unless you have a team of capable boaters, with strong, swift water-rescue skills and ideally, at least one person who has run it before.
Most kayakers use creek boats to paddle rivers like the Gulf Hagas. Creek boats have more volume and stability than other types of kayaks, making them less likely to pin or flip. The four youngsters in our group had creek boats, but I did not. I regretted it throughout the run, as I was constantly compensating for the low volume bow and stern on my Dagger RPM.
Falling
The Gulf Hagas run begins with a whimper, as the river winds through a swampy flatwater section for about a mile and a half. Then, just after taking a right turn around a small island, things change dramatically. Shortly into the first rapid, called Stairs Falls, the water tumbles through a narrow gorge over an 8- to 10-foot vertical waterfall, and ends with a couple of tricky ledge drops. The lower end of this rapid can be seen from the western terminus of the Gulf Hagas hiking trail. A little further downriver is a 12- to 14-foot waterfall, charmingly called Faceplant Falls. Actually, this is a fairly easy drop to run, because it is possible to get good boat speed and propel oneself well over the rim of the falls. A safe landing at the foot of Faceplant is a good thing – as Billings Falls is just below.
Normally, the key to successfully running a waterfall in a kayak is generating enough boat speed above the falls to clear any backwash at the bottom. That is particularly difficult at Billings Falls, where there is a fairly complex rapid just above the lip that slows the kayaker’s approach.
Hence, the unplanned swims for our group.
Below Billings, and out of the view of the hiking trail, is the most dangerous rapid on the river, called Amuck. Most paddlers portage the bottom of this rapid, as they laughingly proclaim, “don’t run Amuck.” The reason is simple. It is a steep, boulder strewn rapid that constricts down to just a few feet in width at the bottom, creating a serious pinning potential. Shortly after is the fourth waterfall, Buttermilk Falls, which is the last part of the run that can be clearly observed from the hiking trail. We found Buttermilk to be easier to run than it looked, as we paddled hard from right to left and jumped most of the rocks and backwash of this nearly vertical drop.
After Buttermilk, there are a couple of miles of continuous steep and narrow Class IV and V whitewater. The gorge in this area is very constricted with vertical cliffs on both sides, which makes it very difficult to scout the rapids, or for a boat deprived kayaker to hike out. As a consequence, we scouted most from our boats in eddies (calm spots below rocks).
There were two drops in particular that merited our attention – Jaws and Hammond Pitch.
Jaws has been the scene of numerous misadventures and close calls, including a bow pin (when a kayak pins vertically in submerged rocks and then the force of the water collapses the boat on top of its occupant) that nearly ended in disaster. We were able to identify and portage the very bottom of the Jaws Rapid. Hammond Pitch, which is a gentler version of Buttermilk Falls, is the last and easiest of the waterfalls. Shortly after that, the difficulty of the whitewater moderated, and it was a fairly easy mile of paddling to the take out.
Calming effect
Fortunately, after Billings Falls, our group did not have any further serious mishaps. However, all of us acknowledged that it had been a very challenging day. We’d all had close calls, and there were several situations where instantaneous kayak rolls were needed to avoid swimming or tumbling over a steep drop upside down.
Gulf Hagas had, indeed, been a great adventure. Will I go back? Probably not – at least, not without a creek boat!
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