Just another day..

We took advantage of calm winds and favorable tide conditions to take in a paddle over to Farm Creek. This bald eagle was patrolling the entrance to the creek. The video is a little jerky as the wind had picked up and the chop was getting, er, challenging.. cool to see him (her), cooler to get a video of him (her) flying..

The Bee's Knees

I think I first heard that expression from my Sainted Grandmother.. but being a down to earth Texas farmer's wife, perhaps not as she was not given to such flights if fancy. That is, as far as I know, though I do recall some pictures of her in styling 'flapper' type get-ups that would argue something different. According the this it has a interesting taxonomy starting in the 18th century as 'insignificant' to the 1920's meaning 'cool!'.

In any case, this summer for the first time we had a hive in our yard. Genius Daughter went to bee class and setup the thing along with Boyfriend. They administered the hive throughout the Spring and Summer, conscientiously tending to the things that needed to be tended to. It was basically all a mystery to me. In fact I didn't really worry about it after I realized that just walking around in the yard or even running the mower past them would not engender an attack.

Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, the queen, and a replacement queen just couldn't get the job done and the hive could not sustain itself. What you see in the above video is the result of a chaotic hive where many of the female drones have tried to take over the role of queen unsuccessfully, resulting in confusion. If we were earlier in the year, they could have gotten another (better) Russian queen, but given that we are late summer, there was not much to do besides breaking down the hive to store it and start over  next year.

It has been a learning experience for all of us, and I have no doubt that next year will be better. I will say that having bees in the yard has resulting in an explosion of all our flowers and the few vegetable plants we have here and there around the yard.  I look forward to watching the hive do it's thing next year, and am grateful I live in a county and neighborhood where such things are permitted.

Another Adventure

I had quite the adventure this weekend. As is often the case, I didn't start out intending for it to be an adventure. I had spent a good part of Saturday morning editing and ‘processing’ the below bike video. Why, because it was there and it seemed a waste to not use all that wonderful footage. I will admit that the utube version is rather grainy and un-viewable, but you have to take my word for it that the original footage is Brilliant! stuff.

Realizing that a rare sunny and mild Saturday was just about to pass the point where I could squeeze in something epic, I folded up the laptop, got the dog up and out for a walk, and contemplated what I could do with the day. I settled on two options – both hiking adventures. The first was to venture up to Buzzard Rock, a small rocky crag located above Front Royal. While the view of the valley there is stupendous, the walk up is, for my healthier body, not the challenge it once was. The other option that came to mind was to return to Little North Mountain.

The Little North Mountain challenge is, I believe, a fanciful product of the Hiking Upward editors. You can tell it didn’t start out as a real thing by the way the trail is laid out on the site – all unnaturally straight lines to four corners… like this:

My wife and I had tried this trail previously and failed to finish last fall. At that time, we arrived with 50% power left on the tablet which I was using as a GPS, and started out on the wrong fire road. This was an understandable mistake as there was a shiny new fire road constructed just north of the abandoned fire road the site recommended. After wondering around for a couple of miles, we finally hit upon the correct abandoned fire road and proceeded on our way. We fought our way down to just about where the abandoned road gave out, and then lost our nerve. This turned out to be a judicious decision as the power available to our only GPS / tablet was also about to give out. If we had proceeded blindly into the forest, there was a good chance that we would have become lost. As it was, the return trip was a little tense when the tablet ran out of power and shut down half way back. We had to rely on my admittedly rusty paper map navigation skills to make it back to the jeep. My wife sportingly referred to that day as a ‘team building’ event, not the more honest moniker ‘scary hike where we almost got lost’.

Even though we did the right thing on that hike and turned back, the fact that we didn't complete the designated circuit continued to bother me. I knew that I had the strength, skills, and navigational acumen to complete that hike, I merely had to come up with the will. The trick was to not let my conscious mind (and my wife) learn that I was planning a rematch until it was too late for us all to back out. Thus, I had spent part of the morning looking at other hikes on the Hiking Upward site, but also refreshing my memory on the directions to Little North Mountain and verifying that the trail head location was still in my tablet’s road navigation app. When I started packing for the trip, I loaded up my backpack with way more power bars than was necessary for a simple 4 mile trek up Buzzard Rock, and placed double the amount of water bottles required for such a trip in the jeep. When we started out, I even insisted that my tablet be plugged in and charging – something that was not required for getting to the Buzzard Rock trail head, which I could drive to blindfolded.

So the conversation traveling on I-66 heading toward Front Royal went like this:

Me: “So I've been thinking, Buzzard Rock seems a little short for an epic Saturday hike.”Wife: <idly looking out the window>Me: “It’s only 4 miles. I think we need more of a challenge.”Wife: <mildly sensing something is coming, looks at me and starts paying attention>Me: “You know what would be great? We should go back to Little North Mountain and try that hike again”
Wife: <skeptically> “Isn’t that the place where we almost got lost?”Me: <warming up to the subject> “Yes – but we know the way better now! We are stronger now. We have the GPS charging, plenty of food and water; and are starting out earlier in the day.”Wife: <Worried look, grimace> “Sure.”

So we passed the exit to Front Royal, and crossed to I-81, taking the second Strasburg exit. Well, truth be told, since I hadn’t put the destination in the tablet to navigate to the trailhead, we took the first exit and pulled off the road. While I totally could have tapped and swiped to select the navigation program and enter the new destination with minimal swerving, my wife insisted that I do this while safely pulled over. Where’s the challenge in that? So after setting up the navigation app, we got back on I-81 and took the second exit. Following the all-knowing GPS, we made our way into the George Washington Forest foothills, past the quaintly name town of ‘Star Tannery”. 

I had to look up where it got that unusual name. Surprisingly enough the name is quite practical. According to the Facebook page the unincorporated town was named after the tannery that operated there in the 1700s. I guess it’s just odd to the modern American mind to have a town name made up of two proper English nouns. Sure “Las Vegas”, “Los Angeles” can get away with a two word town name, but they are Spanish derived. Finding an east coast town in rural Virginia with a two word English name? Too weird! Since its 15 miles from the ‘By God West Virginia’ border, one starts to think about scenes from ‘Deliverance’ and banjos. Oddly enough, since the trail head was located off the modern sounding ‘Zapp Road’, that image was slightly muted. I know, the road name probably came from some family named ‘Zapp’, but that name made everything ok for a domesticated Texas born suburbanite. It’s funny how the mind works, right?

Arriving at the trail head, we prepared ourselves for the journey. Backpacks loaded with foodstuffs and water, tablet charged at 100% with trail navigation program tracking, we were off. The abandoned fire road was easy to follow at first. The roadbed was clear, and distinct. As we progress, the road bed became harder and harder to find due to the downed trees and tall grass. Eventually it mostly disappeared altogether, with only the occasional 50 year old cut log to mark its presence. I can’t say at what point I lost it, but I can say it was definitively gone at some point. The valley we were following began to branch and branch again. What gave me hope (falsely) was that the in scramble through the now unremarkable woods, the terrain began to incline upward. This was both good and bad. It was good as I knew that the Tuscarora Trail that we were seeking ran across the saddle of the valley we were ascending. It was bad because as we ascended, the brush got heavier and all evidence of the faint stream bed I was following disappeared. With it gone, I was forced to either keep my tablet navigation display powered and draining, or rely on navigational skills learned too long ago. This consisted of spotting a tree a distance away along the desired bearing and walking toward it. After all, the trail we were shooting for couldn't be that far away, could it?

In a word, yes, it could be. I began to get frustrated. I knew I must be getting close, but where was it? I sat down and looked at the tablet satellite view. There was a faint line that looked like a trail in front of me on the imagery. Rather than load the GPS track from hiking upward and dropping a way-point to shoot for on the trail intersection from that, I opted to just drop a way-point on the visible trail and hook and follow the GPS to that. The GPS said this way-point was ½ a mile away. “Good” I thought, I can do that, even a ½ mile is not a problem. Of course while fighting our way through stickers, mountain laurel, and the occasional boggy seep, it was a different story. At this point that my wife, sensing my uncertainty became, er, concerned. She asked what I would rely on if something happen to the tablet. Well, in my efforts to fool my conscious mind into taking on the challenge, I had somehow forgotten to pack along my trusty old ETrek GPS. I had to acknowledge that my backup solution should we have to turn back and not rely on the tablet would be my eyeballs and brain. She was, not satisfied with that answer.

We proceeded with me getting more and more frustrated that the trail was not appearing and we were apparently wig-wagging our way toward our mythical path, closing the distance way too slowly. It also didn't help that we began to spot bear scat. One pile was so big and (apparently) so recent, that we were sure we not far from a huge predator. I continued to use my tree to tree navigation. We had agreed that if we hadn't come upon the trail by 430pm, we would make a decision then about turning back and attempting the sketchy effort to retrace our path back through the woods to the stream and the non-existent fire road. At about 420pm, I stumbled over yet another sticker bush and found myself in a clearing. It took a second for it to sink in, but looking to my left I could see a real, honest to goodness discernible trail, and looking to my right it extended there too. 

My wife, still in the woods behind me but sensing my now immobility, probably fearing I was face to face with a menacing mommy bear, asked “Is something wrong?” My reply: “Not a damn thing!” This was followed by her emerging from the brush and both of us sitting in the middle of the trail in relief. As we ate our sandwiches, my wife pointed out the faint blue blaze on a nearby tree, confirming we had at last reached our targeted trail. The way-point I had hooked earlier was actually a road at the base of the mountain still almost 0.4 miles away. Close enough!

The walk down the trail for the return circuit was mostly uneventful. The trail was badly in need of maintenance with tall grass sometimes obscuring the path. The faint blue blazed trees and rocks continued to guide us on our way. At one point I sensed something moving in the bushes ahead of us, but by the time we arrived at the location, whatever it was had disappeared. We continued to find bear scat; dark piles with all manner of partially digested berries, but no bear ever actually appeared. We did get a start when we heard something cackling and moving in the undergrowth, and then, as we backed up a family of pheasants exploded into the air one by one.

Would I do this again? Well probably, though with a backup GPS, a radio for emergencies, and perhaps more preparation for being stuck in the woods overnight. Coming back to Little North Mountain would not be as intimidating a third time as we know what to expect, and how long it will take us to get to the trail from where the ancient fire road completely disappears. The experience itself was liberating though. I learned that I can rely of my navigational and woodsman skills. Did I make some mistakes? Sure, but we kept calm, pushed through, and did what we needed to do to make the best of my short comings. Most importantly, we walked on the wild side and pushed just a little past our comfort zones. That’s what made the trip epic.. and a real adventure. Oh, here’s a screen shot of our actual path:

The Hiking Upward description is located here. 

You can download the gpx track I recorded here.

The waypoint for where we intersected the trail? It’s 38 57.210 N, 78 33.817 W. It’s up to you whether or not to use that should you ever decide to make this trek also…

Something to think about..

BRMC birds from MikeC on Vimeo.

A little meditation and the Birds of Bull Run Mountain Conservancy enjoying the summer air...

Another different kind of video...

So yesterday I was out for a little exercise paddle on the Occuquan to go from my normal launch point at Lakeridge Marina to Fountainhead Marina with my wife. At the first bend, I spotted something white in the water ahead of me. Thinking that somebody had thrown some trash overboard I paddled toward it, intending to do my good citizen thing and pick it up for later disposal once I got to Fountainhead. As I got nearer, I realized that it was a young catfish lying stunned on the water. I though, "Ewww! I'm not putting that thing in my kayak!" and we paddled past it. I then looked up and saw a bald eagle directly ahead of us and circling back. Given it's behavior, I was pretty sure it was on its way to pickup the fish I had just passed. I grabbed my camera out of my vest and started filming.. this is what I got:

My guess is that it had dropped it just before we appeared on the scene, and was on it's way back to get it when we paddled up. While I have seen various birds fishing on the Occuquan, this is the first time I have been this close to a bald eagle actively fishing, or had a chance to catch it on video.

Yet another biking video

A little ride at Lorton, VA...

Kayak Crap - Ignore this if you don't give a damn about kayak crap...

It's probably no secret here I am a novice kayaker. To qualify that a bit, I do mostly flat water kayaking, in season, and have been doing it for a couple of years. I do own a spray skirt but have never used it and have never rolled my kayak.

I got to thinking about doing cold weather kayaking so I did a little research on what type of gear I would need to do this safely. The proper wear for cold weather garb falls into two categories. There is your basic wet suit and something called a dry suit. While a wet suit can be had for around $100, a dry suit starts at about $400.

Now being a cheap bastard, I was leaning towards the wet suit. However, since making the wrong decision could lead to a certain icy death, I thought i'd turn to a co-worker who is a certified dive instructor and has spent many hours in cold water teaching idiots how to deal with the briny deep. Here is his response, which I believe is the best scientific discussion of cold weather gear for kayaking that I have ever read.

=========================

Really tough question to answer without knowing more info. What kind of kayaking do you do. What temp do you do it in? 60 water? 40deg water? Freezing conditions like now?

You lose heat in several ways. I'm going to simplify this from true thermodynamics, so we'll consider two ways. Think of a cool day outside wearing no shirt. Your body warms the air directly next to your body. If the wind is blowing, that warm air gets blown away quickly, so your body has to reheat the air. This makes you cold. If the air is still, your body is more comfortable. But then the air transfers heat to the surrounding air, and things cool off. That is the thermal conductivity of air. The cooler the outside air, the cooler you will feel.

A windbreaker helps by stopping then wind. It doesn't do much for the thermal conductivity of air, but it stops the wind from blowing the warm air way. A coarse wool sweater may not stop the wind as much, but it helps with the second way, providing insulation so that the thermal conductivity is much better. The best is a windbreaker over a wool sweater. The wind is stopped with the windbreaker, and the sweater helps the thermal conductivity.

With water, everything is sped up. It pulls the heat away so much faster.

With a wet suit, you will get water next to your skin. So there is some "wind" that gets through the "windbreaker". However, it slows the water movement, and keeps the now warmer water next to you, so you stay warmer. The thickness of the wet suit slows the thermal conductivity.

A dry suit keeps all water away from your body. So you don't get wet. Also, the outside of the suit is usually a lot "slicker" so it doesn't hold a lot of extra water for evaporative cooling. Much better all around.

But here's the rub with a wet suit. When diving, your wet suit gets soaked. But your ok. The water temp is similar around you. But then you get out. The evaporative cooling pulls the heat away from your body really fast. I have been diving in a 7mm suit in 40deg water. I'm cold, but not too bad. I get out of the water into a 60deg air temp with a faint breeze. I'm suddenly very cold. Much colder then in the water. I would often keep students in the water when teaching to avoid that. You can limit the evaporative cooling with a windbreaker over the wet-suit, but it still cools you down.

Now, for a couple of specifics for kayaking.

You're not usually submerged. So you may not get that layer of water next to your skin. That will help a lot. You may get splashed, (a lot maybe), so you will get some cooling. However, you can put jackets and such over the wet-suit for thermal protection. The also helps with kayaking in variable weather. You can adjust your jackets and such for controlling your temp. If warm, shed a layer, if cool, add.

It all goes out the window if you go under, or drenched from the water.. Your jackets get soaked, and unless they are wool or a smart layer, you loose all thermal protection from your jackets. Your wet suit will protect you from the sudden burst of water and will help keep you warm (especially with a wind-breaker helping keep the wind from helping to evaporate water from your wet-suit.)

With a dry-suit. If you go under or soaked, you don't care. You won't get wet. Your thermals are all inside, so they stay dry. Much better. However, you have a harder time to shed layers or deal with getting too hot or cold. You can't easily add/remove layers. And if you open the dry-suit to change thermals, you really have to be careful not to fall in.

From my experience with kayaking, here would be my recommendations...

• If you are doing casual kayaking, little to no whitewater, generally very stable in the water, and you are in 60deg water or spring/fall conditions, go with the wet-suit. Throw some fleece on as needed to compensate. If you go in the water, take a couple of minutes to towel off and such.

• If you are doing more extreme kayaking, lots of whitewater, or really cold temps like now, you go into the water a lot, or get drenched regularly go with the dry-suit. Bring some layers, but pull off to the side and get stable before cracking that dry-suit to change clothes.

New Trail Guide - Old Rag Mountain - Sperryville, VA

Can be found here. A Must Do if you are hiking in Virginia.

New trail Guide - Veach Gap Trail - Front Royal VA

It is here. Nice little hike for a weekend stroll.

New Trail Guide - Great Falls Billy Goat Trail A

It is here. No - it's not a hike - it's a rock scramble, so don't let the short distance fool you.

Row, Row, Row, Your Boat - Part 2

Sunday was one of the rare Virginia October days where the temperature went into the high 70’s, the sun was out, and a gentle breeze was blowing. It was the kind of day that if you don’t do something with, you feel guilty for the rest of the week. With the previous week’s bad weather and even worse scheduling on my part, I was past ready to take the kayak out for a paddle around the Occuquan.

Preparing for a paddle is usually pretty quick. Paranoia and an anal attitude makes it a bit longer, especially after my incident this summer where I almost passed out on the water from heat stroke. I transfer my ID and fishing license to a doubly bagged baggie. It is somewhat amusing that I even bother to take these. I don't think that in all the years that I have been fishing I have ever had my ID or license checked by a game officer. On the other hand it would take only one time for that to be a rather expensive mistake. I then put the flies that I will fish with and (now) my bagged camera in my mini tote bag, grab some water and head down to load the boat. 

Loading is by design straightforward. I specifically bought a Perception 9.5 Swifty as it could handle my size and weight, yet fit in the jeep without having to go through the rigmarole of strapping it to the roof. I just fold down the passenger seat, open the back, pop it in, secure the end with a bungee and a pad, hold down the back window with another bungee to keep it from banging, and off I go. Sunday I was a little distracted, so I forgot a couple of key elements of fishing gear - my knife to cut line and my reading glasses so I can see well enough to untangle lines and tie flies on.

As I exited the dock I noticed something was different about the river. The row people had placed flags to mark the center channel. There were a couple of 'coach' boats stationary at the marina entrance, and the river was full of boats. It appears they were have a 'regatta' or day of races. I sat for a while to understand what was going on. At the time, it looked like most of the teams were on their way up river, probably to Fountainhead. The few that were on their way back were more toward the center of the river so as to pass as close as possible to the markers for the shortest distance and time.

I decided that the best strategy was to stay on my side of the river, as there was no way I could obtain the speed necessary to shoot any gaps in the traffic to cross to the other side. Since I fish the shallows anyway, that would put me well away from the race traffic when I reached a likely fishing spot. The wind had picked up, so by staying close to the Prince William side, the bluffs would block me from getting blown into traffic and keep the wind from spoiling my cast.

I paddled to my first fishing spot, unlimbered my pole and prepared to fish. With the first cast, I knew I had a problem. I had tried to extend my tapered leader with some additional leader in an attempt to avoid having to replace a whole tapered leader once I had gone through enough fly changes. Unfortuately, the additional leader combined with a light fly meant that the line would not snap when casting, but kind of fluttered into a landing. Any distance or quality cast was impossible (especially in the stiffening wind). After searching around for my knife and realizing I had forgotten it, I was able to clip off the offending leader neatly enough with my teeth. Unfortunately  at the same time I realized I had forgotten my glasses. I sat there, squinting and trying to tie the fly in the end of the tapered leader for a while, but realizing the futility I gave up, broke the pole back down and stowed it.

I was determined that I still would not waste the day, so I decided to proceed to the turn at Jacobs rock so I could get in some more exercise. Jacobs rock is a dangerous turn in the river where you cannot see around the turn until you are committed to it. The depth of the water is fairly shallow there at the turn, so most fishing boats and rowers do not normally risk running aground by attempting to cut the corner too sharply. That being said, I approached the turn slowly, listening of the yelling and cursing that normally accompany rowing crews, as I could see nothing of the other side of the turn around the river bank. My intention was to go far enough around the turn to see the next bend of the river, then retreat back to marina.

Just as I reached the apex of the turn, I heard the whine of a coxswain's amplified voice and the clank of oars. Reacting quickly I back paddled, burying my aft in the mud of the bank and steadying my position by shoving my paddle into the mud as a makeshift anchor against the rising wind. A heartbeat later, a large crew boat swept into view at full speed, barely missing me, cleaving where I was seconds before. The coxswain avoided looking at me as he knew that a) he shouldn't be that close to the shore, and b) he shouldn't have made that blind turn at full speed. I hung there for a while, a few boat coming uncomfortably close, most safely out in the channel. After a while the traffic thinned out enough that I could make a dash for the relative safety of the wider shallows down stream and made it back to the marina without incident.

I must admit when I had a chance to think about it, I got angry that the race people lacked the foresight to place markers at the turn to force the boats out a ways from the turn so as to avoid the situation that occurred. I don’t' really blame the crews, even though they should have realized that cutting the corner that closely was a dangerous thing to do. I did shoot off a strongly worded e-mail the boat club that operates out of the Sandy Point facility who responded that they would forward my concerns to the race organizers. I would hope to hear back from them. In the back of my head I am thinking that if I don't hear from them, I will mark my calender for next year's race and park myself at that corner and read a book, forcing them all to slow down to go around me. On the other hand I probably should let it go. As the Buddha says:

Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one that gets burned

Rubbing my belly here boss...

Row, Row, Row Your Boat - Part 1

If you are not familiar with the Occuquan, it is perhaps one of the oldest and most overworked bodies of water in the northern Virginia area, coming a close second to the Potomac itself. In simple geological terms, it is the lower half of Bull Run creek, which somehow is renamed to the Occuquan River as it broadens out. ‘Occuquan’ is derived from and Algonquian Doeg Indian word, meaning "at the end of the water". Therefore literally, it is ‘at the end of the water’ river. Yes, Bull Run creek is that Bull Run creek that runs through the Manassas battlefield and supplied the geographical marker that the Yankees used to name the battle (southerners using the more appropriate ‘Battle of Manassas’ moniker for the same actions). Below the Sandy Point dam is the lower Occuquan, which empties into the Potomac.

The earliest documented use of the area that I am aware of is at Wolf Run Shoals ford, Where Washington and Rochambeau marched across it to get to Cornwallis. There is ample evidence of various mills and now destroyed dams along river, with the final dam still being in place just below Sandy Point serving to essentially stop any noticeable flow of the river except after a large rainfall. The ‘reservoir’ part comes in as the dam diverts a lot of the water to supply most of northern Virginia with drinkable water.

Since it is a water supply, Fairfax and Prince William County have established some very tight rules for its use. There is of course no swimming. This is a restriction that I don’t really understand except that since it is a government owned and controlled waterway it must be a liability avoidance measure. It surely is not there to account for the small percentage of people who cannot control their bladder (or other bodily functions) while submerged in water. They also limit motors on boats to less than 10HP or electric. I suppose the thought there is marine oil and gas are probably a real problem for the water purification process, so the less of that there is the better. There is one boat I see occasionally that I think routinely circumvents this law. It is an antique steam powered launch about 15 feet long that is powered by burning wood or coal.  There is no rule for wood powered boats! On the other hand, I have never seen it go very fast, so I suspect that steam engine can’t generate more than a couple of horsepower.

These rules make the Occuquan an ideal location for kayakers and rowing. Since all boats are slow moving, there is usually plenty of time to avoid collisions. Additionally, since the motorboats are low powered, there is usually no turn over risk from large wakes. With little or no current, a paddle up or down stream is an equivalent effort, wind strength or direction notwithstanding. Finally, with miles and miles of navigable water, the only limiting factor is available put in locations and a paddler’s endurance.

There are 6 put in locations for this water (above the dam). They are the Rt. 28 bridge just north east of Yorkshire and  south west of Centreville, Bull Run Marina off Davis Ford Road, below the Lake Jackson dam off of Rt. 234, Fountainhead Park, Lakeridge Park, and Sandy Run Park. In theory you can also put in at the Rt. 29 bridge at the battlefield, Wolf Run Shoals Park, or from Hemlock Park, though I have never seen anyone attempt that. I suspect there are rules that prevent you from launching in the creek at the battlefield, and the carry to the creek at Hemlock and Wolf Run Shoals is about a ½ mile.

The Rt. 28 put in is in a location where Bull Run Creek has current, and the creek quickly becomes clogged up north of there. The closest takeout point is seven or eight miles downstream at Bull Run Marina. The put in there requires no fee.

Bull Run Marina is five miles from Fountainhead, but requires a pass and a key fee to get past the locked gate to the launch point; both fees are jacked up if you are not a resident of Fairfax. In theory you can park across the road from the marina, take the path down south of the Yates Ford bridge, and put in for free there (about 100 yard carry). Again, I have never seen anyone do this. Alternatively you can risk your life and your boat by crossing the busy road on an almost blind curve and putting in at the marina dock (which I have seen people do), but really – who needs that excitement?

The put in below Lake Jackson dam is free, but there is only a couple of legal parking places which are usually used by fisherfolk if the weather is good. While there has been a lot of cleanup, the launch beach still has a pieces of glass in the sand, so good water shoes are required. There may be a current, depending on how much water is coming over the dam and tributaries from recent rain. The closest takeout point from there is Bull Run marina, about 9 miles away, going down the creek, entering the river, then going upstream to the marina.  I have never put in from there.

Fountainhead is probably the most common put in location for the Occuquan. Since it is on the Fairfax side, they charge a jacked up fee for non-residents. They are open year round and rent kayaks and canoes there.

Lakeridge is my usual put in location. The yearly pass is cheap (being on the Prince William side of the river), the marina there is open seasonally, and if they are not open, you don’t really need a pass. It is about a mile downstream to Sandy Point, 3.5-4 miles upstream to Fountainhead. This is the calmest section of the river from a flow perspective. The downside is since the marina is co-located with the rowing club, it can get real busy on the weekends. The club has its own low floating dock, which would be great for entering and exiting a kayak, but I usually just use the marina ramp, as the rowing club discourages other users of their dock, especially while they are there doing their launch & recovery.

I have never even been to the Sandy Point facility. It is ‘row central’ for the Occuquan and of no interest to kayakers as I don’t think they even allow launching from there. From what I can tell, it is a highly regulated place which I find best just to stay away from. I suspect you can’t even park within a reasonable carry distance for a hand launch. Nuff said.

That is my fifty cent tour of the Occuquan. In the next installment, I will actually ramble on about my outing there on Sunday. Until then, fair weather and following seas!