Tubing on the Gunpowder

UPDATE 7/8/06 For another Cham post with pics about tubing on the Gunpowder please go here

ANOTHER UPDATE 6/24/08 I'm working on another Cham post about Gunpowder tubing, this one will have a video and a map!

As some of you know, I work in Hunt Valley which gives me access to all the fun in Northern Baltimore County. Yesterday I decided to inflate my tube while sitting in my cube(hey, that rhymes!) and then take off to Hicks Road for some tubing fun. When I got to the intersection of Bee Tree Run and Hicks at 5:30PM it started to pour. This probably should have dissuaded me from attempting this as it would any normal person, but it didn't. I waited out the rain in my car and then descended into the run. A cool mist settled over the water and visibility was about 10 feet. I could have seen better in a snow blizzard.

I needed to go about 3 miles to Monkton where I left my bike and I didn't get started until a little after 6PM. I never tubed this area before so it was a crap shoot whether I would get done before dark or not. At sundown and in the mist this area becomes incredibly creepy. At one point I heard a terrible noise and noticed some sort of large bird, maybe a crane, swooping down over me in anger, I guess it wasn't pleased I was in the river. Since it had rained hard there were a fair amount of rapids which made tubing fun and fast.

When I hit the confluence of Bee Tree and the Gun Powder the water temperature dropped by 20 degrees, the Gun Powder must hail from some sort of freezing underground spring. The air temp was in the 90 degrees F and I had goose bumps all over my legs.

I arrived Monkton a little after 8PM with great relief since I had a few minutes of dusky daylight left. I deflated my tube, put it in my backpack and headed north on the NCRT back to my car. It took me a scant 15 minutes to bike what it took me 2 hours to tube.