Dry River crossing this weekend?

[Jason Berard]

Anyone have an educated guess as to what trying to cross the Dry River at the Mt. Eisenhower Trail. junction will be like on saturday? I'll be heading from Isolation over to Crawford Notch and might head down Rocky Branch instead if people with experience at that crossing think it will be risky due to the heavy rains. I've checked the USGS site for river levels, and they all seem really high right now, but I'm not sure how long it take all that water to drain off, assuming we don't have more significant rainfall in the next two days....Thanks all.

 

[peakbagger-paul]

Dry River

The Dry River does tend to flood badly, so it's hard to say. The Mt Eisenhower crossing, however, may far enough upstream that it won't be a real problem. As I remember it, the river is was not all that wide at the Eisenhower Trail crossing, but it was dry when I was last there.

You could call the AMC trail information line. The Mizpah Hut croo like to go down to Dry River Falls, so they may have some recent information.

 

[Jason Berard]

That's a great idea, I'll do that right now. Thanks!

 

[peakbagger]

I went with Roxie up Rocky Branch to bag Isolation this morning, (Thursday), and the river crossings were a bit high but nothing serious. Given that the rocky branch drains a similiar area as the Dry river, I would expect that the dry river is in similiar condition.

The dry river is very sensitive to spring runoff conditions and heavy rains. It tends to go up quickly and drop quickly once all the snow melt it gone, therefore its condition is much more related to the last 12 hours precipitation.

BTW the dry river suspension bridge is still posted as being out of order, therefore you will get to cross down much lower the the eisenhower crossing.

 

[askus3]

This is a little old but I hiked down to Dry River Falls from Mizpah Hut on Tuesday, June 26. The crossing of the Dry River was a rock hop. Certainly doable on that date and the swim at the falls was great on a hot afternoon.