Last Weekend on the Black Sep 27/28

The fall rafting season has come to a close for this Guide. Thanks to all of the gusts who came to support my habit. Thanks to the people I work with for keeping the job fun and enjoyable. And thanks to ARO adventures for Employing people like me!

The weekend started off a little rainy, cloudy, chilly and remained like that more or less. I got to 140 newell st around 10 am for work. As the other Guides came to work we noticed a new scent to the air. After working the whole day we finally realized that it wasn't a new scent but the actual lack of a foul odor which can only be pinpointed to one man. Chris (the General) koll was absent from the scene. We never even noticed until after the trip. I was the only one at work with a trailer hitch so i pulled the trailer to the take out and shuttled back to the HQ for some last minute preparation before disembarking for the day.

My crew was from Syracuse University. The were the SU Women's Hockey team (Division 1). I had a boatload of girls in my raft! It was interesting chain of events. I wore a really old wetsuit and it was very tight on me. It helped me to express my fine masculine form. Well, I supose Canadian chicks dig that (SU Girls hockey is 80 % Canadian). The asked me if they could ride along in my boat. I was ignorant enough to allow them into my rubber dingy. For a group of varsity athletes i have never had so much trouble on the Black River. These women didn't know their left from right or forward from reverse. We had terrible lines down the River all day. That was fine though because nothing could ruin my day. Saturday night was the ARO end of season staff party! I have to back up a second though. Knifes Edge was crazy I was in second from last. i got a huge hit at K2 and wound up stuck on the ledges on river right pretty badly. I decided rather than push out into the current id let the last boat pass first. I sat patiently and waited for Mike to pass. As soon as he started through K2 I became free! I couldn't do anything about it with the paddlers I had. Mike and I ended up running two abreast over the third drop of the rapids. I narrowly escaped with my wits! The girls in my boar were scared for the rest of the trip!

We also had a real nice line through the Cruncher. I was going a little slower than id like to when I hit the most aggressive part of the drop. We slammed forward and I think a girl may have hurt her wrist. We had a good rest of the trip and ate BBQ and then they finally left.

THE COMPANY PARTY WAS AWESOME

If you never had the experience of partying with River Guides then you are missing out my friend! We had for ourselves made up 130 jello shots a bottle of whiskey and infinite amount of beers. there were about 12-15 people partaking in the drinking portion of the show and all involved wound up quite drunk! We were partying with cops too! (the police in H2O town like river guides) after way too many drinks it was like one am and when we should have gone to sleep for the next days rafting we decided to go rafting to hole brothers and surf. Mind you I had trouble seeing and walking at this point. So we rafted the first three screaming and shouting the whole way down the river. We surfed for a while then drove back to the shop to finish off whatever food was left in the building and pass out for the night.

Sunday was rainy and cold. we were all pretty tired and this strange man walks into the building. he was a solo rafter who wanted to come on the days trip. I still had jello buggers in my eyes and must have smelled awful. I told him to talk to Steve up front. Then i felt sick. Then i got sick. Then i felt better and then i drank some water and felt fine all before 930 am. not bad considering the damage done the night b4. i had a much better crew on the water and told them to rag on the hockey team if they saw them at all for being weak paddlers.

Then i went home and went to bed where I stayed for many hours.

What a weekend. I'm sorry that I don't like to type cause there is a lot more to it. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them or email me @ whitewater_chet@hotmail.com

-Chaz