I have done many runs on the Fife Brook Section of the Deerfield River in my WW solo (22 to be exact), but I had never done a tandem run until this weekend. Some friends are doing a Canadian trip this summer on the Mountain River and wanted to get some whitewater practice. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join them on the camping trip, but I was able to join them for the practice run on Fife Brook.
We had four river trippers – 2 Esquif Prospecteurs (16 and 17), an Old Town Tripper and a Mohawk Whitewater 16. We ran the section from the Fife Brook Dam down to the Shunpike Rest Area. The river was releasing at 800 cfs, which is a typical summer level - lots of quickwater and class I/II rapids, and of course the class III section of Zoar Gap in the middle.
As you can expect, we got lots of stares from the kayakers on the run. We’d get in line at the surf waves, and the kayakers would cut right in front of us. They didn’t expect us to be playing. We finally gave up trying to be polite and just muscled our way in.
Zoar Gap has changed a couple of time over the years. The current line is relatively straight forward – run the shoot at the top center right, then move left to run the drop next to the big boulder. We all made it through fine.
We had a great time – took about 4-hours to do the run. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but what I have is here, including the video of our Zoar Gap run.
My partner's video of the entire run (much longer) is here.
We had four river trippers – 2 Esquif Prospecteurs (16 and 17), an Old Town Tripper and a Mohawk Whitewater 16. We ran the section from the Fife Brook Dam down to the Shunpike Rest Area. The river was releasing at 800 cfs, which is a typical summer level - lots of quickwater and class I/II rapids, and of course the class III section of Zoar Gap in the middle.
As you can expect, we got lots of stares from the kayakers on the run. We’d get in line at the surf waves, and the kayakers would cut right in front of us. They didn’t expect us to be playing. We finally gave up trying to be polite and just muscled our way in.
Zoar Gap has changed a couple of time over the years. The current line is relatively straight forward – run the shoot at the top center right, then move left to run the drop next to the big boulder. We all made it through fine.
We had a great time – took about 4-hours to do the run. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but what I have is here, including the video of our Zoar Gap run.
My partner's video of the entire run (much longer) is here.
Last edited:
