FRANKLIN – The city's First Day event drew its biggest crowds ever on Friday, as hundreds of Greater Franklin residents packed into Trestle View Park and filled area businesses, and as the largest crew of kayakers ever to paddle through the downtown area on Jan. 1 turned out.

Impressed by the increasingly large crowds that have come to First Day in past years, and with the prospect of relatively warm weather Friday, several downtown businesses opened on New Year's Day this year for the first time.

Ralph and Joe's Café was one such business, said co-owner Brandy Underwood, who said she was surprised to see all of her tables full of people looking for a hot meal Friday afternoon.

“Business is very good,” Underwood said. “We didn't know, it's a holiday. But we've been busy all day.”

The hundreds of people taking part in the 11th Franklin First Day was a great sign for the Choose Franklin committee, which runs the event and whose task is to bring more people and businesses to the city, according to Dan Darling of Choose Franklin. Darling is also the executive director of the Franklin Opera House.

But the main attraction of this day, as always, was the display put on by the Merrimack Valley Paddlers group, which held its 34th annual Winnipesaukee River Run on the Winnipesaukee River, which features Class 4 rapids. And this year's near-40 degree temperatures brought more than twice as many paddlers as last year, with about 90 members of the club pushing kayaks and rafts through the rapids.

Though really, for an experienced paddler, it was a relatively easy run this year, so many paddlers made two and three runs down the river Friday. The water levels were perfect, and the water and air temperatures were “comfortable,” paddlers said.

“It's really a pleasant run on a day like this,” said Ben Thibault of Lincoln, who is a captain of the Plymouth Fire Department and a member of the Lakes Region Swift Water Rescue Team. “If you have the right equipment and you know what you're doing, it's almost always a fun run.”

Though one paddler was pulled out of the rapids last year – only the second time in the event's history that anyone had to be rescued – the event is usually safe for experienced, well-equipped paddlers. So said Orli Gottlieb, a member of the paddlers group from Holden, Mass., who has made the trip four times.

Gottlieb, who is a fluid mechanics engineer, said the event is one of the safest of the year for the paddlers group, in fact.

“It looks dangerous, but for us it's not,” Gottlieb said. I tell people that the most dangerous parts of this run are driving here and then getting out of the car when you arrive. The rest is easy if you know what you're doing.”

But the paddlers group reminds people “not to go buy a raft at Wal-Mart and try this; it's not safe if you're not experienced,” said member Andrew Fournier of Northfield.

dseufert@newstote.com