Weekend Plans

Chaz and I are planning some pretty rad stuff for this weekend and I can't wait to get out of the office and get up to the river. It's supposed to be rainy all weekend, which suits me just fine- I really dig being out on the water in the elements- any weather is nice on the river, be it rain, snow or sunshine.

On Saturday we will both be guiding on the Hudson River. The river levels are starting to dip into the dog days of summer, right now the Hudson is flowing at about 3.23 feet, as measured from the USGS gage station in North Creek, NY. I hope we have some good groups and I know we'll have some good times, despite the lower levels.

The plan for Sunday, however, is even radder. Chaz and I are going to drive across the state to get to Watertown (H2O for short) on Saturday night and start the party. (I have to remember to wear my boxer shorts with the Tequila shots and lime wedges and salt shakers on them, they're my party boxers). The plan for Sunday, as of now, is to R2 the Black River. R2ing is when two people paddle in a raft together. Right now the section of the Black we run commercially (from below Mill Street Falls in Watertown to Dexter, with a short walk and lunch break around Glen Park Falls and the Glen Park Hydro Electric Damn) is a sweet class IV run. Chaz and I are planning, however, to run the Glen Park Falls, a nice class VI drop and the poopshoot, another nice drop in the Black River Gorge. I hope all goes as planned and all goes well.

Hudson trip May 29th

Today the River was a swell level of 3.3 feet. I had a crew of 7 in my raft. What better crew could a guide ask for than a bachelor party. They were a pretty fun group of people and definately knew how to have a fun time. I dumped the idiot getting married this sat out of the raft in the rapids Harris Rift...he didn't swim far but he sure looked suprised. We saw some people in another raft trip so a couple of the guys mooned them it was classy. I am very happy that the wind was blowing to keep the bugs away and even more pleased that it was a tail wind. We had an excellent trip and I hope they come back the next time one of them gets hitched!

Walking up river and a native orchid

First off, good job Chaz by creating this blog. Maybe someday someone besides us will read it- haha!

Well, with my first post I wanted to tell you about a little hike me and my wife Heather took on Monday along the Moose River. We started at the parking lot for Rock Island (which is where we put in for our Spring Class V rafting trips on the Moose River) on the Moose River Road south of Old Forge, NY. We had planned a short walk up river to this section of the river known as the Wall- it's a small class 2 ripple rapid this time of year but it has provided Chaz and myself with countless hours and days of entertainment in the past. There's also a nice big eddy on river right that serves as a big swimming pool when the water is warm enough. The picture at the above right is a view up river of the Wall. You can see there are giant rocks that have been worn away over the centuries by swift moving water-the Moose has a bunch of very big glacier deposited rocks in it which makes for big waves, big holes and big fun when the water is high enough. Anyway, my point is that this section of river is a lot of fun, it's perfect for swimming or a picnic or just relaxing and catching some rays.

Me and Heather made our way up river. When we had left it was about 80 degrees and sunny but by the time we got to the Wall it was much cooler and the clouds were rolling in- a storm was definitely coming in (which is good, we need some rain pretty bad). We did a little wading around and I took a dip in the river- it was my first intentional swim of the year and it was very cold. My 'swim' wasn't really a swim, just a quick in and out dip. By the time I was out of the river I barely had time to put my shorts back on before it started to drizzle so Heather and I began our hike back to the car.

On our way back I spotted a Pink Lady's Slipper, also known as Cypripedium acaule (thank you wikipedia!). This native orchid is beautiful and I had to snap a quick photo with my phone- here it is at the right. The Pink Lady's Slipper is relativly common in the forests of the Eastern United States but it is being victimized by uneducated pickers and habitat loss. It is listed by the United States Department of Agriculture as "Exploitably Vulnerable" in New York and it is on the New York State Protected Plants List. The flower is illegal to pick.

Anyway, by the time Heather and I made it back to the car it was raining and thundering pretty hard, but it was a good time. We drove down the road and stopped to have a look at a couple of the drops of the Lower Moose. Sadly, the rain has not had much of an effect on the river levels so let's pray for more to come.

Memorial Day Rafting

Memorial Day 2008
We had 4 Raftin' trips on the Hudson River in a row, I guided all four days and had some crazy adventures. THe river level was about 3.5 feet and the weather was nice more or less the entire weekend. The blackflys have come to life as fierce as ever (I ate a few, a few ate me!).

Friday i had a 6 load from the Newcomb highschool. they were alright kids, pretty funny. At any rate the entire highschool was there and we had about 24 kids on the trip total!

Saturday I took a 16 foot raft with nine guests from the Adventure Society of NYC. We had a couple of swimmers towards the bottom of the gooley steps on the Indian River. THis group actually told me to start a blog so id like to thank them. They are a great crew of folks who come back every year for a weekend retreat in the ADKs. Hopefully they send me some pictures they took so I can add them to the blog.

Sunday was a day from Hell, we had 21 people show up late so John Eddy and I had 16foot boats with a ten and eleven load. We were on the Back of the bubble all day and the guests would not paddle or listen. Needsless to say I had a sore back. Sunday night I used my sweat hut to wind down after such a long day( ill put instructions for the sweat hut in sometime). the Sweat was just the way to relax and wind down from such a long day.

And finally yesterday I had my fourth day in a row to complete my long weekend. I took a 14 foot raft with 7 folks who were in their late 20s early 30s from NYC but went to school at SUNY albany. They were pretty wild characters...real ball busters. We had a good time. Some of them fell out in the narrows and others fell out in the 3rd hole @ mile long