C-Forum

I had a great time paddling the Loyalsock last weekend. The Haystacks is a very interesting, atypical reef drop. I really enjoyed scouting, & running it. The whole run is as advertized in Ed Gertlers book. The AW page however was done by someone who has never run the crick. The min. level given is way off, it is much lower. I almost didn't go, and it was a good level on Sat. A local Loyalsock boater needs to step up an redo the page. Anyone out there?
Rand

had my eye on the loyal sock when i first started. Haystacks seems cool. At this point its probably gonna have to be a run that i hit if i am around the area or something, and it just happens to be running, and i just happen to have a boat.

How was the rest of the run?

steady 2s & 3s for 12 miles, Haystacks is the most interesting thing, geologically and paddling wise

Never paddled it, but its a decent trout creek as well. Now it seems I have two reasons to go back up.

The loyalsock is a great larger creek. I thought the haystacks were great to melt into from the right....pretty easy to have a good swim at. Most of the OC1's had a very deep brace....we had one new creeker swim and get roped out.

I ran it with about 5 openboaters when I gave it a go. I made a pretty good low def video of it a few days after Ice Out.....which is a very impressive time to be on any river. Ice walls, Ice undercuts and huge slabs of 10" thick slabs (like sheets of plywood) littered on the banks from the highwater blowout. It's a real nice lower key run but juicing enough for all to enjoy. I'm shocked more people don't regularly head there. I think it is just hard enough to get that the average class 3 boaters has a hard time figuring out when its good to putin.

The deal with the guage is that it is around 10 hours downstream of the section where you putin so you either go there when you know the water is coming UP or you do some measure of guaging the run out factor if you read the guage. The river goes at high levels easily so don't be over conservative unless you are pushing your limits just being there.

Be careful in the "normal line" in Haystacks. When i paddled it with creeker (AKA wayne) one of the kayakers in our group got recirculated a bit in the hole.

I don't recall whether he got out on his own, or via throw rope, but he was in there for an uncomfortably long time.

Nessmuck...hmmn....now I trying to figure out who you are...never know who's a lurking and reading

that loyalsock day stands out as one of my favorite days on the water.
Mostly due to the combo of a bunch of OC1's and ice out. I never really got the whole kayak vs canoe in the same eddy....but then again I did put my ME bow through chest the Pres of KCCNY at the green monster eddy...oops It might be all my fault.

The haystack swimmer (k1) got roped out. The boat came out a minute or 2 later. We ran it pretty low I would say, but I'm sure the creek goes way lower like it was originally posted. I took video of the swim and like many swims there was a lack of Umph in a boof stroke as well as Umph sticking the first 3 strokes to easily clear. The boater had their first cold swim and the "animal" hole grew in their head. After seeing the video they too realized the "animal" was only 1 stroke away from being a smile looking back from downstream.

While the Haystack rapid has a reputation half of the openboaters made the line look easy with little to no brace. I can't remember perfectly the far right side of the haystack but I'm thinking it's a likely full on sneak at high water(?) though you are very close to the flow leading into the very wet hero line. There is a completely easy portage "line" on the Left where you will be scouting the business.

I'd definitely suggest folks give the Loyalsock a try. If you walk just haystack I'd say you easily take half a class out of the whole run. At a lower flow the haystack was at best 3+ very similar to something you'd find on the Tohickon in PA.....but at high water that haystack hole I'm sure gets to beast level.