Assabet, Nashua, Millers!!

So we had a pretty good paddling week and hit three different rivers to changes things up a bit.

Wednesday night we made it over to the Assabet River in Hudson, this is a great spring time training spot with lots of hairpin turns and a good amount of water in the Spring. We hadn’t been on the river since last spring so of course there is always the anticipation of what lies around the next corner, i.e. trees down or any other obstacles that can shift in the river over a years’ time. It was pretty easy going for about a half an hour to forty-five minutes and then we hit a little snag, a spot in the river that was always a little sketchy and tight to begin with had been pretty well clogged up this winter. Either the beavers were starting to dam it up or an old beaver dam washed down stream. No matter the case we had to turn around way short of what we wanted to and ended up doing a couple loops on the open section just for time sake. It’s on the agenda to go back and open up our old spot we used to squeeze thru once the weather warms up. We did see a lot of wildlife on this paddle, 4-5 muskrats playing in the grass and in the water of course, 2 swans, lots of Canadian geese, a few red winged black birds, and last but not least a medium sized grey heron who just looked out of place without all the nice grass for him to hide in.

Saturday we headed over to our regular spot on the Nashua River in Harvard, it was a pleasant surprise when we arrived to the parking lot being wide open, the snow has finally all melted and we were able to park in our regular spot right next to the put in. Walking thru 3-4’ of snow with a canoe is always a great time but I am glad to see its over for another year. There was a pretty good rain/snow/sleet storm on Friday so the river was up nicely and still had a good amount of water pouring into it even as we were paddling along. The one drawback to this gorgeous spot is the fact that Deven’s Army reserve base is on one side of the river. Basically every weekend they run reserves training and with this comes constant rapid gunfire and sometimes larger explosives which sound like bombs or rocket launchers. I like to pretend I am paddling along in a war torn area and often shout commands at Travis to reload and fire at will just to pass the time, he really enjoys this treatment. We were able to make it down to the dam in Ayer pretty quickly and were feeling great to have our regular training spot all thawed out and accessible once again.

Sunday found us on the Millers River again, we went down with the anticipation of paddling with a big group but we put on the water just about 3-5 minutes behind the pack of about 10 boats and were quickly left behind in everyone’s dust. We decided we would work hard to catch up to everyone but each corner we turned it seemed we couldn’t quite catch up. Everyone was pretty well packed up and if you don’t know this already the pack is always faster then a single canoe no matter how hard you push yourself. After the hard work out up to the starting line of the Rat Race in Athol we finally saw the group all resting and getting ready to head back down. We decided that since we chased them the whole way up the river they could chase us down. We made the turn a little ahead of everyone and started a mad dash down stream towards Orange, it wasn’t too bad of an idea actually because the Rat Race is next weekend and what better time to sprint the course then a week before hand. We were finally caught by three boats, all men’s teams, almost at the end of the course which wasn’t too bad at all considering the strong gusting wind that was in our face most of the way down stream. We didn’t get much drafting practice in but we surely got a great speed workout which will only help us in the long run. Its tough work being the rabbit for those speedy mens teams. 

Above are a few shots of the finish line of the Rat Race happening in Athol Ma next weekend. I will try and get lots of pictures of the chaos and post them for your viewing pleasure. You wont believe the difference in the view from this weekend to the race weekend.