Long submerged Dundee Pond Rapids

The long submerged Dundee pond rapids live once again, for a short while longer. It’s amazing to see these ghost rapids coming back to life, what’s the temporary image of how things used to look in the rivers past, before the dams and canals.
This video I show the portage route: you can take out right at the start of the gate at Dundee Park. It’s an easy pull out up onto the road which is empty because the park is closed all summer as the pond has been drained. It’s an easy hike down the road to Dundee Beach and the end of the portage is just after the playground.
They look like nice little rapids, I did them once accidentally on the day after the pond was suddenly drained without any announcement. The only problem is this has been an unbelievable year for trees falling: I’ve never seen it like. It’s a veritable tree-maggedon everywhere in the Presumpscot. And it wasn’t just unbelievable ice storms in windstorms of the spring: trees had been falling all winter and continue to fall right up into the summer. The problem here is that anywhere there is a nice little chute, which would be great to run in a canoe, a tree has also thought it would be great, but whereas a boat would fit right through the chutes, the trees are too long and have blocked almost every chute. the rapids look to be mostly class two, and if I had a crew, it certainly would be fun to run them: you could keep taking out on the Sandy Beach at Dundee Park and hike back up 100 yards to run them over and over. it’s mostly five or six ledge drops, but there are a few other interesting features.