Hindostan Falls. July 29, 2009. 4990 cfs.
It all began with the 3 inches of rain one week ago, on Wednesday,
July 22. The river rose and started to drop, but we had some storms Saturday
morning. Those storms kept the East Fork of the White River at levels too high
for Hindostan Falls to appear. Finally, by Tuesday night, the river dropped
to 5000cfs, and the drop taper was getting real gradual. I awoke at 3:15, prior
to my 4am planned start time, packed gear, coffee, and granola, and headed
south and west, once again, to Martin County. It was still night time when I
arrived at Brooks Bridge, downstream of the falls. I wanted to check the bridge
for access. There were road closed signs up, but the bridge held the truck just
fine. It probably just needed some maintenance. While tooling around down
there, I got into some sticky situations in my two-wheel drive pick-up and the
super slimy White River clay muck. I was contemplating who to bother at
sunrise, when I decided to gun it nice and steady. It worked, and I found a
thin piece of road that had some sand built up, next to a big ditch. One
11-point turn later, I was gunning my way back to gravel. The sky was
lightening, and I needed to get wet before heading home to get the kids and
myself ready for the day.
Gearing up was easy. I drove down in a t-shirt, shorts, and
sandals. I put on swim shorts, pfd, and helmet and put in at the lower boat
ramp. Paddling upstream seemed harder than at 8500, because the big shelf
downstream of the falls was turning into a shallows, and I could not see eddies
very well. I ferried across to river right, and found some nice eddies leading
all the way up to the falls. Still, it took a lot of effort to get up there.
This side had nothing going on at 5000, but it
should get interesting at 4000. I ferried back over to river left, and found a
huge eddy leading all the way up to the left corner of the falls. As I worked my way over, I
was greeted by a downstream paddler, a turtle with a shell of about 6 inches in diameter, who styled
the river left hole, then subbed under to remain in mysteryville while I skittered along the surface.
I was a bit apprehensive, boating solo and in
the dark. I had not paddled my Rio-T in over a year, and I had a camera and
cell phone in a Ziploc in my pfd. But, as usual, I felt around, and quickly became
comfortable with the various features. I even partook of a wet stroll alongside my duck, since I
did not want to hurt my shoulder attempting to roll it. It was not a
problem, there is excellent, deep eddy service here. The feature of most interest to
me was the river left eddy line. It is well over 6 feet deep, probably more
like 20. The whirlpools are strong and well-defined. Given the excellent return
flow, this should be a great spot for mystery moves, up to 6000cfs. The river
left half of the falls kicks down and right, all the way to the center. But the
ledge is over 120 yards wide, giving at least 50 yards of excellent play waves.
The first feature from eddy to ledge was a tasty hydraulic, about 20 feet long.
I usually rode it over to its corner, where you can transition to a front or
back surf on a glassy wave. This wave is very nice and peaceful. Continuing
towards the center, you then have to shoot upstream past a hump, then into
another decent hydraulic, which is backed up by a nice wave, so if you miss,
it's still fun. Then over a short surf, to what appears to be the meatiest of
the holes. By the time I got to this one, I had to leave, but I rode it a couple of times, and it was not
treacherous. Continuing to center you hit glass, then hole, then glass, then
hole, then lesser glass and hole, and lesser glass and hole, and maybe even
another pair. All of it is backed up by easily read eddies.
I had guessed that 3000-6000 would be good levels, and 5000
did not disappoint. It may be the best level, since higher levels will start to
wash away the waves between the hydraulics. But each visit will mean less
guessing. Hopefully, someone else will probe the levels, since it doesn't
always fit my schedule.
Regarding the photos, I brought two cameras: a Nikon D-40,
which has been shooting great images for the AW page, and an older Nikon, which
has known problems with pink messing up every picture. When I tried to shoot
the bridge in the dark, I discovered that my D-40 had no SD card. That was in a
shirt pocket in my closet, which is better than in the washing machine. So I
took all of the photos with a bad coolpix camera, but I would have used it for the
on-water shots anyways, since I was not crazy about taking the D-40 with me on the
duck. I tried to clean up the photos a little bit, but sometimes it accentuated
the pink. So, these are as good as they get for July 29, 2009. Enjoy, and give
me a
holler when you want to go. The river drops amazingly slowly, so it is
easy to plan a trip to Hindostan Falls. Be sure to shoot some video or pictures
and refer back to the levels, and post a report to the
American Whitewater page! That page is still messed up as of July 29.
I will add here, in case I forget to request an edit on the AW page, that the water quality
is quite fine for 5000 cfs. I originally thought that there was water from Indianapolis in here, but that
is all in the West Fork. Columbus, Bloomington, and Bedford can contribute pollution, as well as all of the
farms along the way, but from a naive perspective, the water seems to be pretty decent.
Thomas Visnius