Kicked off the last full week of summer paddling alongside Ozzy and his Wenonah canoe on the Assabet River in Stow, MA. This is the same canoe he recently paddled from Maynard, MA to Newburyport, MA via the Assabet, Concord, and Merrimack rivers. Of his many portages Ozzy recalls the one around the lower Concord River in Lowell as being the toughest. This past Sunday morning we launched at Magazu's Landing in Stow and paddled up to Gleasondale and back while scouting for some tires in the river. At one location, where a canoe is usually locked to a tree, the canoe was nowhere to be seen while a cut padlock laid at the base of the tree. Hoping it was a case of the owner having lost his key rather than a boat theft.
On Tuesday after yet another rain event I got out on the section of the Assabet River from West Concord up to Damondale Mill...
The USGS gauge in Maynard was at 3.3 feet.
Followed Nashoba Brook up to one of the two outlets from Warners Pond...
...where the combined flow from Nashoba and Fort Pond brooks was quite healthy.
On Friday morning I paddled the stretch of the Nashua River between Route 111/119 and the dam at East Pepperell, MA. I launched from the Petapawag Boat launch in Groton, MA...
...which was flooded because of Monday's record-setting amounts of rain especially in Leominster, MA about 30 miles upriver. The flash flooding in Leominster was catastrophic and resulted from their receiving as much as 11 inches of rain over a relatively short period of time.
After launching I headed just a bit upriver of Petapawag where a strong current was passing under the Route 111/119 bridge. The bridge looks to be undergoing some maintenance work with a barge positioned beneath it...
...perhaps the work is on hold until water levels and current subside.
A smaller bridge over a slough on the same roadway a little to the west had no head room at all...
The many sloughs of the river in this area were accessible. This home had water up to its foundation...
Clouds at the outer edge of Hurricane Lee and a freshening breeze were indicative of the storm approaching New England from the south...
Fortunately, Hurricane Lee would pass far enough out to sea and spare vulnerable inland areas from additional rainfall which they don't need.
Reached my downriver turnaround point, the dam at the East Pepperell, MA, originally known as Babbitasset Falls...
The USGS East Pepperell gauge was at 6.27 feet. The Nashua River had crested here a day earlier at 7.54 feet. On Wednesday, the afternoon before it crested, I visited the dam by car when the level was at 7.2 feet and the display of water falling over the dam was impressive...
The water level being higher than the bridge's road surface seemed much more evident...
The head pressure within the penstock must have been equally impressive...
...and I imagine some good amount of electricity was being generated. Up until several years ago the penstock here was made of wood and had a good number of leaks squirting out in all directions. Yesterday it was tight as a drum.
I think it's safe to say that this summer will go down as one where our rivers never got seriously thirsty.
Trash from Sunday morning included only 6 miniature bottles aka "nips"...
Trash from Wednesday had 5 miniatures "nips"...
Trash from Friday included 110 miniature "nips"...
Encountered a few fallen trees over the course of the week including this one across the path to the boat launch in West Concord...
One other thing I came across last week was this old map of Lancaster, MA which included the Nashua River and its two branches. According to the map, at an earlier time, today's North Branch was the North River; the South Branch was the Nashaway; and the combined main stem presently known as Nashua River was called the Penecook River...
The map was included in The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts 1643 - 1725 prepared by Henry S. Nourse. It was drawn by Harold Parker. Though I've seen the name "Penecook" mentioned in text before, as an alternative name for the Nashua, I believe this was the first time I saw it actually printed on a map.
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