AMC Paddle - Assabet River Marlboro

So December is truly a mixed up month.  While arguably it is ski season, it turns out it's still paddling season.  Years ago, my friend John would usually lead a December paddle on the Nashua River.  This late season paddle just popped up an my radar and since it was so local and the river wasn't frozen yet, I concluded it would be lot more fun than raking (again).  For the record, most of my friends think I'm crazy for doing this asking if my boat has an icebreaker on it.

Today's route followed the Assabet River from the Milham Reservoir just south of the Solomon Pond Mall in Marlboro to the firehouse in downtown Hudson.  This section of the Assabet is an extremely windy and there was a lot of visible beaver activity.

There were 3 canoes, 2 whitewater, and 6 recreational kayaks (11 boats) for the 13 people who came. 

    

Ahead is one of the many obstacles

The river snakes under I-290 by way of a long, dark tunnel.

Look carefully, and you can see I'm taking this selfie from inside my yellow boat.

At several points along the river, there were obstructions (rocks, logs) that where we come through a little quick water chute.
Then we'd wait for everybody to make it through safely.

Finally, it's time for a lunch break on what may have been an old overgrown dam.

After lunch we embarked on the last leg of our trip.  We passed under a really cool looking bridge in Wood Park in Hudson.  I tried to snap a photo, but unfortunately my camera dies, possibly in part to the cold.  In any event, there was only another 1/2 mile to go.

The total mileage was about 5.4 miles.  We started paddling at 10:25am and were off the river by about 2:20pm.  It actually felt much colder in the afternoon as the clouds crept in obscuring the sunshine.