Runoff!

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Friday, August 24th, 2007. Missisquoi River, Vermont. Darrin awoke to the same steady rain that had lulled him to sleep the night before. When he emerged from his tent, he found it and his canoe covered with “eight billion” slugs. Slimy as they were, Darrin preferred them over the previous day’s skunk.

After breakfast with the slugs, Darrin set out to navigate another upstream day, only this time with much more water. His route up the Missisquoi was lined by acre after acre of agricultural fields - fields that drain run-off into the river. After a night of steady rain, runoff swells and accelerates the river current, making upstream paddling, and the lining that comes with it, much more challenging. On Thursday, before the rain began, the river’s discharge was measured at 200 cubic feet per second. The rain stopped by mid-morning on Friday, but runoff continued to accumulate over the course of the day. By evening, the river was flowing at 700 cubic feet per second! (Discharge in cubic feet per second is a typical measurement of river flow. For more info, see www.waterdata.usgs.gov/) Needless to say, paddling up swifts was particularly challenging.

Regarding runoff, how does one know that it’s really agricultural runoff, versus rainwater accumulating? Unfortunately, the water reveals it all. On Friday morning, the river was relatively clear and blue-green, the way rivers should look. By afternoon, it had turned a murky brownish color. The telltale sign was a riverside dairy farm that had brown water coming from it.

Despite resistant current and extra water, Darrin reached the town of Richford by 2:30 p.m.. He had planned on using a campsite at the town’s riverside park, but decided that the 85-degree temperatures, along with his sore and cut feet, warranted the luxury of a motel room. Wasting no time, he checked in at the Crossings, a small motel with a pub and grill.

Fortunately, Darrin’s day at least included some good food. For lunch, he stopped at another one of Vermont’s fine general stores, and enjoyed a huge sub - a sub so big that he had to eat it open face. For dinner, it was a seafood platter at the Crossings’ pub. I asked him if he still hoped to lose weight on the trip….

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