[at-l] Crossing the Kennebec

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley)]

At 09:45 PM 10/16/01 -0400, Bob Cummings wrote:
>  with the new water releases designed to protect trout habitat,
>fording is more difficult now than it used to be.

I am bold enough to state that I have spent more time in flowing
water than anyone on this list.  I'm talking thousands of hours
here.. And I am very familiar with these chart values and what
they mean re efficiency of motion, as I have spent the last 15yrs
working in such environment....moving heavy loads from point A to B
in various depths, temps and volumes of flow.  I have even used a
back pack to move loads but found it inefficient due to the balance
issue.  Better to carry negative buoyant loads low and  push
positive buoyant loads.

Here are two links to charts that show the flux at two points,
one above and one below the crossing.  Each page shows two charts.
First shows flow as cubic feet per second.  Second shows
depth in feet at that data station (so it's relevance is not specific
to another locale).  I have backtracked the data and that extreme
spike yesterday is not unique. (sorry...long urls so you may have
to cut and paste if they won;t click through.)

http://water.usgs.gov/me/nwis/uv/?site_no=01042500&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060
Page one, at a locale above the crossing shows that you can expect an 
increase of
up to 3000% when they open the dam...from 200 cu.ft.per sec. to near 6000.
This is a stunning increase.  If you change the format to 'table' and the time
frame to one day,
http://water.usgs.gov/me/nwis/uv?dd_cd=01&dd_cd=03&format=html&period=1&site 
_no=01042500
you can see that yesterday at 12:45 the depth was 1.53 ft and the
flow was at 217 cubic feet per second but at 1:00 it was 4.08 ft.and the
flow was .3,479cu.ft.per sec.......like I said stunning....increase from 
knee deep
to chest deep in a period of 15mins.  At ten years old, I spent an 
uncomfortable
two hours in a tree when i got caught in such a flow increase...it's spooky to
say the least.

Page two, at a locale below the crossing shows that you can expect a similar
increase up to 6000 cu.ft.per sec....although the base flow at this point is
considerably higher resulting from a narrower stream bed I assume) , so
it doesn't appear as dramatic, you still can expect in excess of 6000 cu ft 
per sec flow.
http://water.usgs.gov/me/nwis/uv?dd_cd=02&dd_cd=06&format=gif&period=7&site_ 
no=01046500

I am unsure of the locale of the crossing in relationship to these two points
(I estimate half way but that's a guess as I don't know where the dam is)
so I am unable to estimate the flow/depth at the crossing.

At a flow of 1500 cu.ft.per sec. I can do anything even in chest deep water.
Including moving hundreds of pounds of negative, neutral or positive buoyancy
loads.  At 3000, things get iffy.  At 4000, my own buoyancy comes into
play in chest deep water.  You just don't exert enough downward pressure
to keep your feet....ergo, you are probably swimming rather than walking.
At 5000 in chest deep, I am swimming really hard and losing ground.

As a further reference, we do not take our boat (a pontoon with a 25hp motor)
out in flows of 15000 without a good reason .

Add to that the temp issue.  I have polar dipped when we had to break ice for
access.  I have forded thigh deep in water with ice floating.  Until you 
have done
that, you have no idea of the effects.  My legs go numb within two minutes
which means you loose the balance correction function so necessary to stay
upright.  When you go down and subject your trunk to the water, you have just
minutes before you loose the ability to function.  Of course, I doubt 
anyone would
consider fording with ice and i am unable to find any Maine station that 
displays
water temp, (evidentially no New England sites are equipped with temp 
sensors)
the current readings for Northern Pa range from 40-45 degrees or roughly half
the temp necessary to sustain human consciousness.  The bottom chart here
http://pa.water.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?dd_cd=03&dd_cd=04&dd_cd=06&format=gif&perio 
d=90&site_no=01428750
shows the temp range for a northern Pa Stream for the last ninety days.

You can do this at home.
Fill your tub with 50 degree water and climb in.heheheheheh....or try the hot
tub at the PaRuck HA!!

I think fording the Kennebec is a warm weather thang.....and I'd suggest ya'll
bone up on how to float a pack.  Check out "The Complete Walker"  (i think
but maybe it's in one of his other books) by Colin Fletcher
for some good input and  basically some great reading.  And for Pete's
sake, if something goes wrong, DO NOT try to swim straight across.  It
just doesn't work that way.  I have participated in several searches for
dead swimmers who thought they could conquer current.  Better just to
stay afloat and make gradual progress toward shore than to try and swim
perpendicular to the flow

BTW....all this info comes from http://water.usgs.gov/realtime.html
A terrific tool and a fun way to snoop around the rivers and streams!

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