Home for the big water

I have been putting off writing this post because I wanted to make sure and have enough time to include all the whitewater experiences in the same post. My trip home started April 16th. I drove with a friend from Crested Butte CO to Burlington VT in about 37 hours. We went non stop it was kinda crazy but not bad. After I dropped him off in Burlington I went home to old forge NY where I had just missed the weekend of whitewater there.

Next Sunday however, I entered my 2009 whitewater season with a 4.6 Moose river trip. I wasn't planning on guiding as this was the weekend for my annual alumni Rugby tournament in castleton VT. I was very happy however to get the call into work Saturday night. I drove back to old forge by about 1 am and went to totes tea house for some Foosball with my brother max till 2 the went home and rested up. The day started off nicely with a fine line through iron bridge. I had a 14 foot raft with a crew of four from Michigan. One guy was now living in Aspen CO. I told him that CB was way more rad. We ran tannery with a little bit of difficulty. If the river was any bigger we would have been in a tight spot. No big deal though everyone had clean lines. The following rapids called Rooster Tail is a pretty long rapids and probably my favorite on the river. This rapids has two holes very close to one another at different angles which can be technical then some huge crashing waves for the last 100 yards or so. We ran perfectly until i hit one wave off square and that forced my boat onto a nice pinning rap rock. I shouted for a Hyside Left to prevent the boat form folding around the rock and flipping over. We maneuvered off the rock and then watched john eddy and crew do the same damn thing. Froth Hole was the first rapids to have some carnage in it. I remember seeing my guest tumble over the edge of my b oat into the hole. he must have been under for a good 15 seconds as my boat stopped paddling and drifted into the guides prison. our safety boater Marty picked up the swimmer as I worked the raft out of the violently swirling eddy. Mix master was rad Larry and I flipped over although Larry's flip was more extreme because he got it in the room of doom and swam mix master itself whereas i flipped in mix master. John Eddy had a perfect run dumping his crew and staying in himself. Millers Falls was our last rapids to speak of and since it was such a nice day we decided to stay and play. we surfed and dumped people into the river for over an hour. I had never been able to play here for so long because it is usually much too cold by then in the trip. We ate and drank after the trip for quite some time enjoying the late afternoon sun. After that i went to slickers with Steve B and Marty for some party pitchers.

Locals day on the Hudson Tuesday the 28th of April. The gauge read 5.5 feet providing the perfect river. At this level one can go into every feature on the river which at any higher water level is far too dangerous. I was paddling a crew of 5 in a 14 foot boat. Also at this level the waves are still aggressive and relatively large. I had a crew of young people from Old Forge some I know like Sarah Moore and some I didn't know new to town since I moved away. We had a spectacular day then we flipped in Bus Stop. It was very cold but well worth it. Everyone in my boat had the best time and promised to come back next year they really enjoyed the trip i provided for them. I felt good after the trip it was nice to be back home and on the water with my friends.

Friday we had a trip on the Hudson again. We had a high school group from south of Rochester. the river was a bit lower but still above 5 feet. I had a crew of 9 in a 16foot boat these kids were fun. they come every year and have a rockin time. there wasn't any carnage on the river. Critter dean and I guided this trip. Saturdays trip we took Sienna College outing club down the river. I hit Jim Swedburgs Photo wave sideways to spice up the hit and a girl caught her paddle blade in the current and the 'T' grip hit her nose and she bled all over the place. She was fine though she told me she was a Rugby chick so I figured she had been hit harder! We had a nice day however with a 10 load in my boat it can be hard to hit everything because there isn't any room for me to go sometimes except out.

Whitewater Derby was sweet even though I didn't stay the night. Cathy came with her famous cookies. It was great to see her. Don Curry came as well but he didn't bring any cookies. we drank a bunch of beers at the shop then went to Laura's for more then went to the train tracks to listen to a band where Gary found a free keg of IPA I drank alot of it! Gary drove us back to old forge around 9 we got home about 10 then I raced over to H2O town breaking the land speed record over the Moose River Road. I got there just in time to drink more beers hang with John Steve and Marty. Alex made a bunch of rum infused cherries and they were great I ate a handful before bed and it turned my gentle buzz into a drunken spin. it was great to sleep on a raft. No other aspect defines one as a river guide more than sleeping on a raft between trips.

Sunday i had another college outing club the river was running 5500cfs or so and we had great lines all day. Ran the high water skate at Knifes Edge and had about 1700 cfs in the gorge. I had to run 3 rocks backwards cause my crew want listening but we were fine except on girl dropped her paddle. almost hit panic rock in zag which was sweet cause i hit the big waves in front of it which are kind of off limits as the generally lead int a bad situation with panic rock. I don't know how I avoided it but I got around it and then went to cruncher. I had the biggest hit of the day in the cruncher it was sweet except for the fact I was not aiming to hit the deepest part of the hole. The rapids changed since my last visit and I wasn't expecting such a powerful wave at the bottom of the first drop. the same girl who dropped her paddle in 3 rocks got launched pretty hard into the person in front of her and was shocked a little bit. After the rocket ride we waited for the tsunami and hit up square rock and shave and a haircut. We didn't have any beer on this trip because it was a college trip so I had a grape soda. it was a good soda. Just have to thank Larry for the brownies after the trip! they were very good.

It was great to be home for a couple weeks. It was awesome seeing everyone. thanks to Gary and Steve at ARO for putting me to work on the rivers. Thanks to Marty for keeping it safe. John it is always a pleasure to raft with my brother in Whitewater. Alex, Erica, Mike, Larry, Brenden and Mary black river crew great to see you. Tosha thanks for takin pics and vid...email me with a couple I will upload them to the blog. Mark Critter Dean Dick and the my ducky sister Lynn it was a pleasure paddling with ya! Have a great summer and stay tuned for new stories from a new river.

Hudson River 4/18. Pretty good water, really good times

I'm in the office enjoying a lunch of a chicken sandwich made with leftover chicken from the rafting company (which is really good and I think I might make this a habit; It gives me a little taste of whitewater I guess you could say, in the middle of the week). This past weekend I was up on the Hudson for the Saturday trip. ARO had 12 boats on the river and we got a rather early start and beat most of the other companies on to the river to ensure that we were not in the middle of the mass of other rafts out there. It was good to see all of our Hudson River guides again, like Lynn, Mark and Critter, but there were also a few newer faces that I didn't really recognize (again, too much time away from the water I guess). Stevie U, Alex Erika, Larry and Mike also made it up which was nice. It was just nice seeing everyone and having some good times out there.

The Hudson was running at just below 5.4 feet with the dam release. I had a smaller 14 foot raft with six college girls from Mansfield College (it's in Pennsylvania, but near Elmira, NY I'm told). They seemed to be nice girls and I was on my best behavior careful not to curse too much or tell any really dirty jokes or talk too much about crazy partying. They seemed to have fun and I had a blast. We went a bout as big as we can at these levels without anyone falling out of the raft. In fact, the only swimmer I saw all day came from Erika's boat of goofballs (She and Alex had one big group and one of the boats was dressed as Indians, like Native American Indians, and the other was dressed like Cowboys, like with guns, not the Dallas Cowboys). Anyway, she had a swimmer at the top of Big Nasty but the guy got back in the boat pretty quickly.

So anyway, I'm being really nice and respectful to these girls and not crazy or too loud or cursing, basically, not really being my normal self at all. And at the end of the trip they gave me a $40 tip. Now $40 is not great or anything but I was thinking the whole time that since they were college kids I wasn't going to get a tip at all. So I was thinking "wow, I guess I was right to be a little more mellow out there for this group." But then, after we put the boats away and hung up the wet suits and did all the other work around the shop, Larry comes over and tells me how he got an $80 tip from his cllege group (part of the larger group from Mansfielf College). And I'm like "Damn! Larry's being his usual crazy self out there and he gets double my tip!" Hahahaha! I guess the moral of the story for me is that I always have to be just be myself to get the best tips. After the work was done I drove home to Albany and enjoyed a couple of scotch on the rocks's. I actually turned down work with another rafting company for the next day because I had a few things to do around the house with Heather, namely plant our recession garden out on the deck. We planted tomatoes, zucchinis, green beans, egg plant, bell peppers, cilantro and chives and Heather planted some wildflowers. I'll post pictures of our container garden as things progress.

For next weekend I'm hopeful that we'll be back on the Moose as we're supposed to get some good rain all this week. I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed. Also, I'm working on getting out with Chaz one day maybe run the Hudson or something rad, I guess we'll see.

Big Water Alert! Come Raft!!! Hudson Aug 7th

The River was cranking today as we have had a bunch of rain. All of the Rivers in New York are up and if you need to go Rafting this weekend will surpass your every expectation with nice weather and spring like runoff. Check the link on the right side of the page for current stream flow data to see what the River is doing. Anyway, the Hudson provided me with the trip I have been looking for since this past Spring. The weather was perfect the water was high and I caught guide air in almost every Rapids. I'm sure John Eddy wants to be here this weekend but he is in Long Island on the campaign trail. Or was it prison? I cant remember what he said. Hopefully we get more rain at night so the River maintains a strong flow. Maybe this weekend will be another one of those River trips I will be telling stories about for years!

Hudson Aug-5

The Hudson river was very busy today for a Tuesday. ARO had a 4 boat trip down the river. The level was 3.7 and dropping. I had a crew of 7 in my raft. One family of five and another couple. The family of five was from new jersey but the father was originally from Rome NY. the other couple, they were from Switzerland. The guy wasn't used to being told what to do so I kinda let him do his own thing the whole trip. I also knocked him outta the raft just feet above Chucks hole. He pulled back in before the drop however. The only other notable event besides a pleasant day on the River was Surfing the third hole in mile long. It was a good surf...nothing like the Cruncher... but it was nice. I will be back on the water Thursday but probably working for another outfitter as ARO has only a small trip. Hopefully we get more rain to bring the Rivers up more and add some adventure back into the trip!

Hudson River, Saturday June 28

Real low water this past weekend. I believe the river was running somewhere around 2.8 feet. took a group of guys from Fort Ann, NY up there for one of the guy's bachelor party. They were alright, nice enough but they wanted bigger rapids (and I can't blame them) so I encouraged them to come back in the spring or to go down the Black River. I swam the bachelor twice and one and a half of his buddies. One guy fell out kind of in the Narrows (he still had his feet in the raft he was just under water, so he was the half). The other swims occured in Big Nasty (due, ofcourse, to a rock) and Mile Long. I kind of like it when people fall out when the river is this low- it adds a bit of excitement, which is nice. I got stuck on quite a few rocks, which can be expected at these summertime levels. It poured really hard for most of the river trip- it was really nice. At one point I was thinking that it couldn't possibly rain any harder and then it would rain harder. I liked it but the bachelor was like 'boo hoo I don't like the rain'. I called him a 't-shirt guy'. The rain brought the river up to about 3.5 feet so I'm sure today's trip was nicer. We got pretty far ahead of the bubble (that's what we call the extra water from the dam release in Indian Lake) and we all got stuck a lot. It was a lot of work out there this weekend. I hope the river comes up significantly as I'm planning on taking a few of my buddies down the river next Thursday. We won't go if it's below 3 feet ish. It's storming right now in Albany so hopefully it's raining up north too.

Me and Heather are going down to Long Island for the long July 4 holiday weekend, so I won't be on the river. It should be a good time, we'll be staying with Heather's sister and her Fiance. He runs a big farm out on the east end so that will be a good time and we'll do some fishing for Blue Fish in the Peconic Bay. Last time we went down we caught like 15 fish and grilled them up- pretty tasty!

I'll be going away until November pretty soon for my 'real job' (the term we use for gainful employment that's not raft guiding) so I'll be done with river trips for the year shortly. It's kind of a bummer that Summer just started and it's already ending for me. I'll just have to enjoy what time is left before I have to go away.

River trips that make you who you are

Chaz and I were talking the other day, during our epic trip down the Black that there are a few River trips that make a person who they are, that you will remember for the rest of your life. I've got a few of those sort of trips and I wanted to share one with you today.

My first real whitewater trip was a trip down the Hudson River Gorge section with ARO. It was the Senior Class trip for my High School and I had just turned 18 a couple of months prior. I call this my first real whitewater trip because I had gone down the Sacandaga River a few times as a Cub Scout with the Old Forge Troop and of course, I'd done plenty of goofing off in the rapids and drops of the Moose River growing up. Anyway, it was June and the weather was just getting warm- it was a beautiful sunny day and I was in Gary's boat along with a few guys from my High School class (Gary is a principle owner of ARO, we call him 'the big guy'- if you know him you'll know why). We had a great time with Gary taking us down the river. He told a lot of jokes and shared a lot of information that I still use on the river to this day.

The sun was hot and the Hudson can be a very long trip in the low water days of June- I got sunburned on my hands pretty serious. We surfed at Bus Stop for a while, all piling on in the front of the raft and keeping the water flowing over the bow. For the last two miles we drifted out. At the end of the day, at the barbecue, Gary asked me about working (he knew that I was looking for a job guiding). I told him I was for sure up for it and started guiding Ducky trips on the Middle Moose the following week (this was about the time Chaz was starting at ARO also, in June 2001).

So I went home and told my mom that I knew what I wanted to do for a weekend/summer gig through college- I told her I was going to be a Whitewater Guide. She was a little nervous like mothers are even though she's been rafting in some pretty big stuff along with my dad (like Moose River at nearly 9 ft and Hudson in Spring) and she told me "Johnny, I want you to be very careful out there...you came into this world on a busted rubber and I don't want to see you leaving on one."

I hope to share a few more of the river trips that have made me who I am in the future.

John's perspective for Sat Hudson, Sun Black

I just wanted to add a couple of things to Chaz's post about this past weekend. It was super-cool and super-badass.

Saturday, I was also on the Hudson. We ran two waves of trips. I was out on the first wave with 'regular people' (not boyscouts, school groups or camp kids) and Chaz, as he mentioned, was on the second wave with boyscout group. I was surprised that Chaz wasn't on the first wave with the other half of my group as we work pretty well on the river together and show people a pretty good time. Just a couple of weeks ago we both had rafts of the same group and we had a good old time splashing and goofing off, even during the drops. Anyway, I had regular peopl, a group from the city and Syracuse, led by a couple of people who have been rafting with ARO on numerous occasions this season (they love us, what can I say?). The weather was a nice solid rain for most of the river trip and turned into a solid downpour after lunch, just above the Narrows. Noone fell out of the boat and we all had a great time. I hope they come back and raft with ARO again soon.

As Chaz said, we drove to H2O ready to party and we got down pretty good. The river trip was also one of the best ever for me- Chaz and I went real big, as big as we could possibly go on the Black. It was a great time and I'm sure Chaz will post pics/vids as soon as we get them. I suggested to Chaz after the trip that we quit guiding people down the river and just do rad shit like that from here on out. Basically the only way to go bigger would be to run the Bottom Moose in a raft and I'm hoping we can do that before the end of Summer. As I've been telling people lately, Chaz and I are basically the two coolest and most badass Raft Guides you know.

Update: Here's some photos from the trip...Sarah was nice enough to send them along.

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.