Miracle Mile of Middle Meadow River
"Nick's 1st Run"
March 2005
With the weather in the lower 40's - upper 30's when the sun was not out, it looked like a perfect time to get Nick Jitima out on his first run. The Meadow is a wonderful river with such variety. Upper Meadow is a continuous class III+ rapid for 4 miles. It is an excellent winter bombing run. Middle Meadow has more pool-drop features. And everyone has heard of what is on the Lower Meadow. The Miracle Mile itself is basically 4-5 significant class III rapids. There are undercut rocks, sieves, and slots that you need to be aware of on this run. Just for default, think of every rock as undercut and I would not recommend running slots that you have not seen someone make it through or you have not scouted. Nick had developed a solid roll and was really eager to learn. At the put-in he learned what it is like to change into your gear in the winter. The river launch had a nice 6 foot seal drop. The level was about 1000 cfs. We (Joe Napora, Nick, and I) spent a good while in the first couple of class II shoals catching eddies and ferrying. Jenny and Darin O'Dell, along with their dogs Marley and Kona, were the film crew from the bank. They filmed us from each rapid, except number two that has the good and bad slots. The first significant drop starts on the left and passes a rock. The current then moves towards the center and falls over a reef with some twisting currents with a wave/hole waiting on you at the bottom. The twisting currents got the best of Nick and he missed his roll in the shallow drop. But with a dry suit on, he blew up like the Michelin Man and we got his boat into the eddy. First swim out of the way and Nick was ready to go. The second significant drop is the most dangerous if you don't know where you are going. You can recognize this drop by the house-sized rock on river left. It has two yellow rope swings on it and there are trees growing on top. The safest and easiest route is to stay far river right and run the far right slot. The center slot should not be run at under a few thousand cfs. There is an upstream facing rock in the bottom of the slot that has pinned one person pretty badly (http://www.americanwhitewater.org/photos/?photoid=6938). The two left slots are good to go but the center is the one to watch out for. The look on Nicks face coming into his first 3 foot slot was classic. The house sized rock can be paddled through to the back through a cave-like crack. The next two rapids are straight forward. The Island rapid can be run far right or left into an eddy and then back over to the right channel. There are a few undercuts to watch. Nick made the eddies and ferried out nicely. The most significant rapid (I guess) is called Bridge Rapid. It starts right then back to left. You can see a big pillow rock on the bottom left of what you can see from upstream. The pillow rock is undercut and has an old Bridge abutment on top of it. The line is to work from center of the current punching the squirrelly holes above the pillow/bridge rock and then work hard left to stay away from the rock. Nick was flipped in the squirrelly holes and hit a beautiful combat roll. We then lined up in the current for the bottom boulder drops into the pool that is the end of the Miracle Mile. Excited and ready to go, we headed back up for run number two. Nick styled the lines and picked up 4 more combat rolls, most of which were in the Bridge rapid (last rapid). Impressed with Nicks performance, Joe Napora said, "I think we made a paddler today." I agreed.
Jenny and Darrin have 30+ minutes of footage of Nicks first run which I am sure he will value for a long time. Hopefully we can convert it over and post it here in the future.
Rocks of the Meadow
Here is a look downstream at the Bridge Rapid... the undercut/pillow rock is out of frame to the left.
All smiles after a great day on the Miracle Mile. We finished the trip with a stop at Pies and Pints in Fayetteville.
(One minute after this was taken I realized I could not find my wedding ring which was on my watch. After a 10 minute search at both the put-in and takeout I was relieved to find it in the back pocket of my pants.)