Caught in big weather events

[stripperguy]

In another thread, I mentioned that not much changes between my visits to favorites spots in the ADK's.

yknpdlr noted:

Unless there is a Derecho when thousands of acres of trees topple and for decades change how the entire landscape is accessed.

So not to clutter that other thread with so much drift, I'll carry on here...

During that Derecho, one of my former employees was camped at Huntley Pond In July of 1995, her recounting of that experience was harrowing. She never primitive camped again.

The other recent big blowdown in 1950 caused similar effects, another of my former employees was a young boy, camped with his family on their property on Long Lake. He was but 4 years old then, but was still traumatized by that event many decades later.

My gang was camped on Rock Lake (not pond) during the same storm that blew down a huge tree and crushed Lynn Malerba, a well known Adirondack guide, near Rock Pond in the spring of 2018.
We had heavy rain, hail, high winds with limbs and trees dropping all around us. I went to sleep and missed most of it, but the others, including my son, DIL, SIL, nephew and his GF, were all so shook up that we packed up and left with first light.

Any one else get caught up in these big blows?

 

[yknpdlr]

I happened to be at a SAR first aid/CPR training event at a public park facility near Saratoga NY on that 15 July 1995. I was camped just inside a tree line next to a large open field with our training building about 100 yards away. It was one of those most uncomfortable hot ultra humid sweaty nights. I woke up around sunrise to very loud thunder advancing in the western sky. Most of the sky was soon covered with a layer of what I later learned were thousands of mammatus clouds (so called because they look like bulging pendulous breasts) hanging beneath a solid cloud layer, eerily sunlit from below by the just rising sun. Continuous fingers of lightning constantly sparked and traveled horizontally just below the cloud layer, making loud whispering crackling sounds. I had never seen clouds or heard and seen lightning quite like that ever before. I wondered if a tornado was coming and was glad to get inside the solid concrete walled building.

As the wind increased I, and everyone else camped near me quickly packed up our tents and gear and headed into the building as fast as we could. Only later did I learn that a woman was killed in the Saratoga area from a tree falling on her car, and the true extent of the Adirondack damage from the 100 mile wide line march of 120mph straight line winds.

Many years earlier, I often went hunting with my father. He often pointed out the remains of very large diameter trees decomposing that he said were downed by the hurricane of 1950.

There are remains of a once half mile long strip of previously large virgin white pine trees in a grove that was never lumbered off the west end of Lows Lake, a paddling area that many Adirondack canoe trippers know well. I was there before 1995 when the towering impressive pines were still growing strong. All but one were toppled. Today only a single giant pine tree (dubbed the "old man") remains in a not so secretive location if you know how to bushwhack to get to it. I am told that at one time it was in contention as the largest growing white pine in the state, but the storm broke a good segment of its top off.

The Old man and Sarah:

 

[Bob B.]

Years ago I was traveling in WCPP. I went in with a buddy, we split up soon after entering together and were to meet agin 3 weeks later with some others who were flying in. There had been a lot of rain prior to our start and I found my route was rife with muddy/mucky portages. There was also a major fire in the park … I was soon advised (by a float plane sent from Claire ) of my new route as mine was impassable due to the fire. Long story short, I had neither time nor provisions to attempt the 70 plus extra mile “safe “ route, so I raced the fire attempting to get in front of it. So nine hours a day for a few days kneeling in a mucky bilge inflamed my infection and the hours of kneeling severely damaged the structure of my knee, tendons and ligaments. I eventually got ahead of the fire and bushwacked my way to Royd Lake were I spent about 2 weeks waiting for our group as this was the rendezvou lake.

It rained nearly everyday on my little camp, and the wind was fierce to say the least … now and ever after named on my maps and even with Claire as Windy B**ch Rock. At times I would be in my tent pushing on my tent poles so they would not collapse. My canoe was always off the water tied down well back in the timber so it would not blow away.

On a couple of occasions, the wind was so intense the living trees would snap roughly 20 - 30 feet up. I would be in my tent with the deafening roar of the wind … hear a loud snap … a pause … then feel the concussive thud of the tree top landing near me. I would often pray asking God to let the tree top kill me instantly if I were to be hit rather than be pinned for days. With my knee messed up I could not walk well and could not paddle with enough leverage to be effective against the wind ( could not kneel ). 22 days of heavy wind, 10 of those 22 days were ridiculous dangerous straight line winds.

Eventually my friends showed up, the winds and rain receded and with their patience with my slow rate of travel, we completed the rest of the trip trouble free.

 

[JohnSand]

I don't remember any strong weather in a canoe. I've been at sea in gales in vessels ranging from 39'-210', weather bad enough to break things on a steel ship. Probably my most dangerous weather experiences were squalls. Anchored at night on a 20' boat in a large bay, thunderstorms strong enough to make the anchor drag brought me out on deck. The rain was hard enough to soak me through my foul weather gear, lightning and thunder were continuous. I thought it was unlikely that I would get hit, and if I did I wouldn't have anything more to worry about. Among other incidents I've been rowing in a small harbor when a wind gust flipped over a nearby dinghy. I rowed faster.

 

[Bob B.]

JohnSand,

I have been in similar situations at sea ... I appreciate your post. I have been in those pop up squalls ... and nearly hit at anchor by a large water spout. Unnerving to say the least.

Bob.

 

[Rippy]

While not really qualifying as a "big" weather event, an experience comes to mind. A couple years ago in the Fall I was camped on the edge of the BWCA intending to take day trips. I had had a serious motor cycle accident that spring and had not recovered yet enough to take an actual canoe trip. Anyway I chose a west facing camp site to hang my hammock up and set up camp on the edge of the trees thinking to enjoy the sunsets. The weather radio forecasted heavy rain during the night with a chance of 60 mph wind gusts. For some dumb reason I was skeptical of the "chance of" part. I bring two rain flies along, a small one and a bigger one for wet weather. The small one is sufficient in wet weather to keep me dry in the hammock but the bigger one covers my gear better. I set up with the big fly. Well I woke up in the middle of the night to heavy rain and sustained wind gusts hitting my fly broad side and forcing it against my hammock causing it to lean quite a bit to the leeward side. Of course the trees were swaying quite a bit as well. Not sure what to do I decided "well this will blow over soon". After about a half hour of this I decided I was wrong. To make matters worse I discovered that the wind had stretched the seems of the fly enough that water was starting to leak in on my sleep gear. After a couple minutes of oh sh*t, this isn't good, I decided to try putting up my smaller fly under my big fly. That actually worked quite well to stop the water from coming in but I was now soaked to the skin. I had a change of clothes along and did my best to keep dry under the end of the fly while quickly changing. I still got a little wet but I got back in and got warmed back up. The storm lasted at least another hour. As I lay there listening to the wind and rain I had plenty of time to second guess my lack of judgement. In the past such a forecast would have had me moving camp inland. All I can do now is shake my head when I think back on it. Too soon old, too late smart.

 

[ppine]

Mostly big wind events. On the Colorado River in Feb north of Yuma we had winds in the 55-60 mph range. We flattened our tents and the sand blew over the top of us. We stayed put for a day waiting for the wind to subside. No way we could travel in it.

Basswood Lake in BWCA with a steady 30 mph wind was tough. The edge of what we could travel in.

Lake Powell, AZ in a ski boat on a day trip away from our house boat. The wind came up in the afternoon and was channeled in the canyons. We contemplated spending the night in a cove without sleeping bags. We made it back to the main boat. On the radio we heard of several power boats that were sunk that day.

After storm events and the wind quits and fronts pass through is a great time to fish.

 

[riverstrider]

In the fall of 2014 my group was camped at Jaws on Churchill Lake, where we had arrived earlier that day under sunny, calm conditions. After we set up, we were entertained by several thunder storms that passed to our south. One of our group, Jim, decided to take a hike up to the dam and ranger cabin, I decided to grab a quick nap, and the rest of the group hung around under the communal tarp. Well, seems the storms we were watching extended further north, and at some point I woke up to a howling wind that came out of nowhere and dislodged one of the stakes to the tarp over my tent. I heard some shouting, but decided to stay in the tent until things calmed down.

When I got up and joined the rest of the group, I heard the story: they were still under the tarp when the wind hit and the tarp almost flew away. While battling the tarp back into position, Billy pipes up with, "was that a canoe?" Sure enough, the wind had picked up Jim's boat (he was still not back) and blew it and one of his paddles into Churchill Lake. Billy launched after it in his canoe and got it, but couldn't get to shore in the howling wind until Tommy (who chased him down the beach) threw him a line and hauled him to shore. The paddle was lost but fortunately we found it the next morning washed up on a gravel bar between camp and the dam.

We all tie our boats up in camp now, regardless of the forecast.

-rs

 

[memaquay]

Been in several of what we refer to as micro bursts. They are relatively short, intense and very dangerous. Trees snap off half way up or come out by the roots. The worst one was on Stewart Lake, off the Kapikotongwa, with around 20 school kids. Where we had camped was ideal, as there were no big trees around, but the storm was ferocious. I heard something like a freight train on the shore opposite us, about 300 meters away. When we checked it in the morning, looked like a tornado had gone through, there was a swath of trees flattened for a few hundred meters. The canoes had been stored inland, stacked in a row, and they ended up topsy turvy all over the place. At times, I thought we were going to have a major incident on our hands, as the wind roared and the lightening cracked down very close by. When the storm passed, I got out and checked on the kids. In the boys tent, they were still in the "lightening stance", a position we had practiced, somewhat in jest, back at the school. The girls were mostly unmoved by the experience.

We have had several other microbursts, but that one lives on in my memory for the potential it had to actually do harm to people.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Two canoe clubs clubs had annual Halloween weekend trips into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, which is an area of several narrow winding streams that canoeists love for day or one night trips.

In 2011 four of us decided to extend the trip from two to four days—Harold Deal, Paul Conklin (@Conk), Peter Georg (@Pgeorg) and myself. On Thursday we paddled the Batsto River, on Friday the Oswego River, and Saturday/Sunday was supposed to be an overnight on the Mullica River with one or both canoe clubs. However, both clubs cancelled their Mullica trips because of a huge rainstorm nor'easter that was supposed to blow into the northeast on Saturday.

I decided that I didn't want to be paddling and camping overnight in winds and rain on Saturday, as did Peter, but Harold and Paul did the Mullica trip by themselves and maybe someone else that joined them.

I began the drive home to Connecticut late Saturday morning, a trip that should have taken about four hours. It began to rain while I hit the Garden State Parkway. As I traveled north, the rain turned into the heaviest, wettest, fastest blowing snow I had ever seen. Leaves were still on most trees, so the snow burden quickly became too heavy for branches. Entire trees began falling across the parkway. I saw one fall directly on and crush a moving car in southbound lane. Traffic jammed up with cars sliding all over in the quickly deepening snow. I was in a full size van with rear wheel drive and, of course, no snow tires that early in the season.

The four hour trip took about 14 hours. The entire route home was littered with traffic jams, stuck cars, and downed trees and telephone poles. I could barely make it up 15° grades. When I got home after midnight I found snow breaking the branches of my thousand dollar trees I'd planted on my property. I frantically ran around with a broom trying to knock snow off the branches, cursing mother nature. I could hear trees cracking and breaking and thudding down from all over my front and back woods. Power was out for days.

It was called the Halloween Nor'easter of 2011 or Shocktober or Snowtober. Here is a Wikipedia picture of a neighboring town from mine:



I learned afterwards that Harold and Conk survived some rain and wind on the Mullica overnight just fine, and that their drives home Sunday afternoon were fairly uneventful.

 

[Nick Pending]

This one isn't a "weather" event but instead a "ground" event? It's still pretty big.

I actually wasn't along on it, had taken a pass on going along this trip, but a friend I've done many others with and who was along gave me the story. It was an I think April 1993 Grand Canyon run, private permit for 18 days, Lee's Ferry to Diamond Creek. Somewhere in there was a Richter 5+ earthquake at about one a.m. or so. It's pitch dark, no one can see anything; the ground is shaking, boulders are falling off of cliffs all around everywhere, some landing on the beach they're camped on, some directly into the river making huge splashes.

No river runners were killed or even hurt much that they heard of, though two backpackers on the South Kaibab Trail (Phantom Ranch up to the South Rim Visitor's Center) were killed by fallen rocks. One commercial raft group had a huge boulder smash their kitchen gear into the beach it was set up on. They managed to scrounge gear borrowed from other commercial rafters and continued the run with no problem.

 

[Alan Gage]

I once got a sunburn on a mid-April canoe trip in northern Minnesota. I thought that was a pretty big weather event but maybe not what you were thinking of?

Alan

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I once got a sunburn on a mid-April canoe trip in northern Minnesota. I thought that was a pretty big weather event but maybe not what you were thinking of?

Alan

Oh the horror!

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I once got a sunburn on a mid-April canoe trip in northern Minnesota. I thought that was a pretty big weather event but maybe not what you were thinking of?

Haha. Any sun at all is indeed a big weather event in northern Minnesota or, in fact, in all of America's snow belt canoe utopias. Here's the average daily sunshine map of the USA:

 

[Nick Pending]

Haha. Any sun at all is indeed a big weather event in northern Minnesota or, in fact, in all of America's snow belt canoe utopias. Here's the average daily sunshine map of the USA:

I was on a South Nahanni, NWT run back in 1993, also. August if I remember right. There was one day it hit 96 degrees F. What were we, a few hundred miles from the Arctic Circle? Five days later it snowed. Great run except for the last couple days.

 

[Paddlinhal]

1. Late 70's, me and a bud at Fishing Cove, the northmost tip of Cape Breton Island, NS in a $25 pup tent with a cheap tarp for a fly. Rain was pounding, we went out and cut some oversized stakes from driftwood, secured the tarp and went back to sleep. In the morning, the dozen other tents in the field were all gone. Just us.
2. 1983, Grand Canyon at 100,000 cfs. They closed the river behind us. I actually took a picture of them guys that ran it in the Emerald Mile.
3. I don't even remember when any more, me and Doug D on the Pemmigewasset, 10" of rain became an 18' flood. We lost our boats and spent the night in a tree, but you guys have heard that one.
4. This summer, the Broken Skull River in the NWT, the Ranger contacted us through Inreach, warned us of 6" of rain coming our way. We packed up in the evening and paddled downstream through Landslide Alley until we found some dry ground 10 or more feet above the river. Heard a giant landslide in the night, where we had passed. Bivouacked for 3 days waiting for the river to drop to a sane level. Without the Inreach, they would have tried to evacuate us by helicopter.

Who doesn't love an adventure!

 

[Gamma1214]

Happily, I can say that I've (so far) avoided anything like you guys mention. Closest I've come was a BSA winter jamboree where everyone but our troop pulled out during the night as temps went to 10 below 0 (Fahrenheit) and once above tree line when a routine thunderstorm became a bit tenuous.

I didn't care for being the tallest thing on the ridge and wearing an external (aluminum) frame pack. I spent the night tentless (aluminum shock corded poles didn't seem wise) huddled in my rain gear between some rocks as the lightning tore the place apart. Didn't sleep very much and the pack (40+ feet away) didn't get hit. Maybe I was overly cautious... didn't seem like it at the time.

 

[tketcham]

Any one else get caught up in these big blows?

Not canoeing but I did some fish ladder survey work up in Prince William Sound one summer and our "base camp", a 42' converted shrimp boat named the Cora B, had set anchor for a job at the end of Long Bay, southeast of Whittier, Alaska. A couple of us had gone up the river in a 13' Boston Whaler to do some fishing after supper and after a while we noticed the wind was really starting to build so we headed back to the Cora B. When we got back to the head of the bay the wind was howling with building white caps. We saw the Cora B had pulled anchor and they were waving us off because it was heading back out to the open sound and deeper water. So I headed for a small section of somewhat leeward shore, crabbing the Whaler through the waves hoping not to swamp. We made it and tied the bow and stern to trees on the shore to keep the boat from blowing away. Just after that a blast of wind lifted the boat up off the water and shook it like laundry on a line. Then the top of a dead Spruce near the boat broke off and landed on the motor and tipped the boat enough that waves were washing into the boat. So I jumped in and managed to lift the dead top off the motor and into the water. That kept the waves from washing in but the motor housing and controls were busted up pretty good.

Then, we saw the two supervisors (a fisheries biologist and engineer doing some reconnaissance) in another Boston Whaler speeding back out from the river and heading towards the Cora B, which had surprisingly (stupidly?) come back up to pick them up. (The supervisors had a portable radio so must have contacted the Cora B.) We watched in amazement as the Cora B swung around turning broadside to the waves and the Whaler came in alongside, upwind. We thought sure they were going to be dashed up against the side of the hull and maybe crushed between the Whaler and the Cora B. But right when a big wave lifted the Whaler, the two leaped up and managed to grab the lower railing of the Cora B and hang on as they were helped onto the Cora B. The Whaler slammed into the side of the Cora B right below the legs of the two hanging on and then the Whaler sunk back into the water; gone. The Cora B finished coming around and headed back out to open water. Everyone on board was looking over at us as we tried to convey that our boat was disabled but we were fine.

We figured it would be a while before the wind calmed down enough for the Cora B to return, if she made it back at all, so we found a somewhat protected area behind a small rise and settled in as the wind howled and the rain picked up. We weren't too worried about surviving a night out since we were dry and had chest waders and storm coats on. Plus, we each had one of those foil emergency blankets and wrapped them around ourselves; pretty decent bivouac setup.

About an hour later the two supervisors returned in the third Boston Whaler to "rescue" us. We showed them the broken motor on our boat but they thought they might be able to to tow us back. But going into the wind it wasn't likely to work. So the idiots thought they could put four men in their small boat and travel up the bay in white cap conditions. My buddy and I didn't think that was a good idea and told them so but our boss told us to get in and curl up in the bottom of the boat. He gunned the motor and headed out into the whitecaps. Sure enough, the waves started breaking into the boat and no more than 40 yards out the boat swamped. Luckily we drifted back into shore and returned to our protected spot. But now we were soaking wet. To make matters worse, the guy wanted us to tie our four emergency blankets together to form a tarp. Again, my buddy and I thought that was a bad idea and that we should each wrap ourselves in a blanket, but they were the ones in charge so we made a "tarp" and tried to all fit under it. The two supervisors (now acting like selfish babies) took the best spots (the ones my buddy and I had previously set up) and we were left curled up below, with rain water running off the tarp onto us. Luckily the rain didn't last too long. Lesson learned: Just because someone is your boss doesn't mean they know what they're doing.

In the wee hours of the morning the wind had died down and we heard a motor boat coming up the bay. It was the Coast Guard in a big Zodiac inflatable rescue boat. They loaded us into the Zodiac and we headed back to their ship (don't recall the name) where they served us hot cocoa and some sandwiches. They asked us what had happened and the two supervisors gave them a very biased account of events, with them as the heroes and making my buddy and I out to be a couple of doofuses. Pissed us off but we didn't want to loose our jobs so we kept quiet.

We learned that the storm out in the sound had been blowing at 80 knots (92 MPH) at its worst and they figured up the fetch of Long Bay gusts were probably over 90 knots (>100 MPH). Quite an experience for a country boy from New England.

 

[yknpdlr]

Speaking of scouts in winter. My local council always scheduled a winter event at our local scout camp. It was called Gawasa-Okpik. Okpik being the Inuit term for snowy owl, Gawasa being the Iroquois name for "snow snake". Gawasa is a game played with a long straight stick often carved and patterned to look like a snake and is raced on an iced channel downhill slope. A day was spent teaching cold weather care and how to keep warm, making warm stuff from what have you, or cheap thrift store items or scraps, then shelter building in the 4+' deep lake effect snow typical of this region. Scouts would build various types of shelters, trenches, dug out drift caves, or quiinzees (a piled snow and hollowed out snow hut). One such event featured -30F temperatures at night, not getting above 0F during the day. I built a nice demonstration Quinzee. Luckily the heated dining hall was open for those scouts who did not quite get the full concept of how to keep warm in a properly made snow shelter. But my 6' quizee had an elevated sleeping platform with a chunk of snow for a door, along with built-in candle holders cut into the wall.

Even when the outside temperature was no higher than -30F that night, I slept warm and cozy with my shelter inside temp at +20 or above with just the heat from two candles (and a small ceiling vent hole). The next morning, few adult's cars were able to start without jumper help from one or two that did start.

 

[JohnSand]

Your posts remind me of another weather event that damaged my canoe. I was in Lewes De visiting family, I bought my 15'x28" 40# lapstrake canoe. We were staying one block from the beach, where many people stored small boats. I left the canoe down there too, with slight reservations. One morning I walked down to the bay, my boat was gone. dang, I thought, someone took it. So I started looking around, hoping it had been "borrowed". That's when I realized the beach was in chaos. A larger beach catamaran was upside down, other damage and disorder was visible. There had been thunderstorms the night before, we watched before going to bed. Apparently strong enough to blow away a canoe. I scanned the water first, then tried to figure the path it may have taken from looking at other damage. After more searching, I found the boat over the dunes with some damage I could repair back home. How much wind is required to blow away a canoe? One flew from our backyard in a hurricane when I was young.