Raging River...is this the Colorado?

The recent rain engorged the river to an all time high of 9.05 on the Naperville guage. Pat and Dan were in the tandem and Kent did the solo thing. We put in at Centennial beach with a takeout of Knoch Knolls. The GPS indicated our high speed was 9.1 mph with an average speed of about 6 miles an hour. We finished the 5.73 mile trek in 56 minutes. This trip normally takes about 1.5 hours.

With the river so high and fast the ability to take quality rivers shots was diminished. As you can see from the pictures, the river was over much of the walking path downtown and flooding the parking lot at Knoch Knolls. At this depth (and this fast) there was one bridge in Naperville that we had a precarious moment passing under. We managed to get through without impaling our heads on the low hanging metal brackets hanging under the bridge.

Sunday 8/27/07 - Saturday was so good I decided to take out Duper virgin Andy on the same route. Just one day later the river was noticeably lower (8.2) and passing under the bridge mentioned above was a non-issue. The speed of the river seemed about the same but Andy's desire to show off his manly paddling prowess propelled us to an even quicker time than the day before. I tried to explain that the appeal of the Duper is the float not the paddle!!