Hanksville to Cochran Road

Posted on the VPC website by Eric Bishop The first trip out of the box for the new paddle season is always the toughest. Do I have all my stuff....? At least this particular Saturday was perfect, sunny & in the 60’s and medium water on the Huntington. Met the gang in Richmond at the park and ride 1:00 sharp. Half went to Mad River; the Three Musketeers went to the Huntington. It is always fun to paddle with these two because you never know what to expect! (Always a good time, with safety and learning high on the list). "Let’s go up as high as we can, up the Camels Hump Creek!" I knew we were in for a trip. Geared up a few niceties to all the cars passing by and away we go! 30 seconds into it the little ditch with boulders and a little water in it had me pinned, cleared that and pinned again not five minutes later. This time I found myself so happy I survived again, dry and undamaged that I decided to let the boat go, Eric will catch it! "Don't let go of your boat!!" came out of Eric’s mouth as he proceeded to swim as he tried to corral my boat. Thanks Eric, Lesson number one: self-rescue is okay; do not let go of the boat! This all happened in the first 5 minutes of the trip! I am glad to say it got better! Nice water level, friendly people and cows, lots of eddies, don’t forget to get out at the house with the wagon wheels, river left. You can go to there, or further as we did, carrying by the beautiful, but deadly Huntington Gorge. Carry around, stay left on the trail and put in below. The next bit is pleasant 1/2 mile stretch with interesting rapids (comparable in difficulty to those above the gorge). Take out on river right and carry way up this hill and down to miss a lower gorge. A couple hundred yards, very steep. Put in below in an absolute river wonderland, paddling another mile till you come to the Cochran Road bridge take-out. Great trip. Hope my mentors will have me along again! The following was posted by Andy Meilleur There is a bridge just upstream of where Dugway Rd meets Huntington Rd that has a 5 gallon sized rock about 20 ft. upstream of the bridge. Tony Shaw showed me this rock as a water level gauge for the river and I have used it ever since. Medium level starts with the rock about 6" above water with a noticeable eddy. High level starts with water cresting over the rock. Very high level starts when the rock is submerged and forms a small surface wave. After that is flood. We had a warm day near 80 and the river was filled entirely by runoff. The level was high, rising to very high. We put in a bridge below Huntington Center and ran the river, finding washed out features and wave trains. There were many strainers, most of no consequence, but two near Dugway road were significant. There were several swims, all short, and after all, it was first time out for most of us. \-\- Andy Meilleur