French Creek June 7th
 

In prep for the French Creek outting, I would like to do a pre-run of the section from Utica to Franklin next week on Wednesday or Thursday. The weather looks good and I have next week off. It's been 8 years since I've seen this part and want to check it out. Any of you unemployed or retired people want to go with me? What the heck, employed people can just call off and go too! Ed

For our run on June 7th,we will meet at 11am at the boat launch in Franklin on Elk St. We will paddle French Creek if the water level is high enough. If not we will paddle on the Allegheny to Fishermans Cove. Both are about 10 mile runs. We will figure out the shuttle that day. There is a new shuttle service in town. Would you be willing to pay for a ride and what would you be willing to pay for a ride?
Please let me know if you are going by Friday June 5th.
Paid shuttle, yea or nay?
330-568-1619
eartt16@aol.com

Great trip. I'll let EAR do his report, but suffice to say, I enjoyed the trip. On the run, we saw a raccoon climbing over logs looking for a tasty tidbit unconcerned about us passing by, a doe and her small fawn creekside, jumped a mature Bald Eagle and had lots of songbirds & ducks you could see & hear.

My first trip down French Creek. Like to do it again when there is more water (we had a little over 2') as we hit alot of rocks and had spots of fast water that was fun to run. Good turnout.

We're planning to float French Creek from Utica down later this year. Is there any hang ups or trees down that may cause us any problems ? I heard about something in the creek that causes a riverwide ledge just before Franklin. Any help is much appreciated.

We ran French Creek from Utica to the Allegheny River, taking out at the Elk St. landing. Its open all the way, no obstructions. You need however at least 2' of water as it gets low in spots and we had some get stuck up on the rocks as we barely had 2'.

Compliments and thanks to Ed for a great float down French Creek. Also my first trip on French Creek, and like Paladin1aa I too would be interested in a return trip.

My thanks, also, to Ed for leading us down a very pretty stretch of river and for all the prep work that he did that went into making it a smooth-running trip.

I'd say the high points were the two eagles, the massive populations of ferns along the river, and one particularly scenic stretch where the water was a beautifully shimmering blue as the river turned left below what was probably the highest hillside along the way. Low point was probably toward the end of the trip where French Creek widened and became increasingly shallow since the river level was just barely above canoeing zero (2.0') on the Utica gage.

All in all a great day on the river!

JP

WOW ! I guess I don't have to do a report here. Just a little info..the creek was at 2.3ft on Sunday with normal flow. We had 18 show up for this one. I thought it was a lot of fun too. The ledge around the bend near Franklin caught a few people by suprise, it was about a 2ft drop, but we paddled right over it.
A little rain this week and the solo canoe group will have a nice run also.
Thanks for the nice turnout people!
Ed