Roadtrip to the Minden via Watertown, NY

Yeah ... I know the title seems a bit misleading but Minden was my ultimate destination via a small slight detour.

I was initially supposed to go paddling with my McMaster University White Water club on the weekend but I also was asked by some of the junior freestyle team to come down to Watertown, NY to take pictures at the Black River Whitewater Challenge.

It was a tough decision which might have ended up in me disappointing friends either way.

So after some deep meditation (yeah right) I came up with a plan that would meet the needs of everyone. It involved going to both events.

I left work friday afternoon and headed off to Kingston. I stayed with Bob and Liz that night. I also managed to go visit Alex at his new place which coincidentally happen to be less than 5 minutes from where I was staying. I scared the crap out of Alex on his front lawn when I yelled at him. It basically came down to a holy crap WTF are you doing here moment.


I told Alex I was going down to Watertown for the event and we decided we were going to travel together. I picked up him early saturday morning at 10am and we headed off to the border with two shiny brand new kayaks on my car ... no none of them were mine. After an easy crossing thru US customs we we in Watertown before noon.

The even was initially supposed to be held at the Route 3 Wave but it was flooded out and the organizers were going to use Holes Borthers as the backup. The Keeners arrived at the same time we did. Alex grabbed his gear and headed right down to the river to get some practice rides in.



I spent some time catching up with some of the Keeners and the OKS staff. I also ran into Josh and Devyn. Devyn was just recently sponsored by Riot Kayaks with some help from me and he want some pictures taken with his new shiny boat. Here is Devyn's boat in a reflection shot from Josh's glasses.



The only problem with taking pictures was how to get down to the shore line as the banks were steep and the easy access was blocked off by the city due to construction. I ended up getting dressed in my paddling gear and walked down an open area that was not blocked off or posted with no trespassing signs. I ended up having to walk up the eddy line in the river to get to the spot I wanted to take pictures from.

I spent the rest of the day taking pictures of the competition while taking some time out to talk to some of the parents I knew from previous events. As usual the competition started late and ran over for time so some of the competitors (including Alex) would have to come back on the sunday. I went back up to my car to change and pack up my gear while Alex got a few more rides in while his mom was watching.

Link to pictures from saturday are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157606962259080/

I left around 7pm with the boats on my car and no Alex. He was going back with his mom. I told him I would drop the boats off in Kingston before continuing my journey. I had the customs guy from hell. It must have been the bring every extra customs guy to that particular border crossing nigh and rip cars apart for something to do. After being grilled for about five minutes I was on my way.

I managed to drop the boats of in Kingston and be at the campfire for beers in Minden just after midnight. Not bad considering I had to have a 20 minute catnap along the way. Things started to die down around 2am and there was no way I felt like setting up my tent. I was just about to crash on a picnic table in my sleeping bag when I found another place to sleep. It was the roof covered playground equipment. It turns out there is enough room for two complete with roll bars so you don't fall out.

I finally got out of my sleep bag around 9am sunday morning and it apparently rained during the night so the picnic table might have been a bad first choice. After a quick breakfast we all headed down to the river where I spent some time taking pictures and going for swmims in the river. I decided I needed a weekend of no paddling and was quite content with floating around being quite relaxing.

Link to pictures for sunday are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157606956444047/


After that it was some good byes before heading home.

Life at Palmer Rapids

Well ... I don't know where to start but here goes.

Ryan asked me over a month ago if I would have any free time in my busy schedule to paddle with him and his friend Markham Mike. The only catch was I would have to paddle tandem canoe with Mike and he had never done it before.

For some reason I said yes ... could it have been the impending 6 pack of coolers on ice that would eventually make it my way ... possibly so.

I ended up getting to the Paddler Coop around 5:30pm on friday night. I was sitting out in from of the local general store contemplating getting some ice but I could not see the building considering it was 5 feet in front of me due to the frickin rain. This would be just the beginning of the crappy weather for the night. I had to endure another four rain storms during the 45 minute period I was setting up my tarp and tent.

So what was I to do for the night considering I was the only camper in the whole place and all alone waiting for Ryan and Mike to show up at some late hour. I ended up crashing a local house party until 9:30ish and then crashed in my tent for a bit until I heard Ryan shuffling around in the dark about an hour later.

Someone who resembled a person I used to paddle with before he quit his day job and decided to teach paddling also showed up ... some guy name Neil. Well he is not all that bad as between the two of us with the help of some naptha we got the fire going and had a few drinks before Markham Mike showed up. I finally could not stay awake as I had been up at 04:30 and worked a full day and finally crashed around 1:30ish.

Mike made us breakfast saturday morning. Blaine showed up at I don't know what time to come paddling with us and he went to set up his tent and crap while we finished up the dishes and got our paddling gear ready. We finally got on the river around 11ish.

I must say it was different paddling tandem. I was in the stern of Ryans tandem boat and poor Mike was in the front. We did some basic strokes before heading off to the current to practice ferries and s-turns. Thing were great as we had no swims. We decided to finish the day early just before 3pm by running the lower set. Mike and I took our time as we were practicing eddy hopping and ferry all the way down.

The plan for the rest of the afternoon was to pack all the boats in Blaines truck, head off to Foymount for shopping, meet Neil at the icecream truck in Quadville once he was done teaching and run the Lower Mad before dark.

turn Colin's car into a storage faciltity - check
load paddling gear into Blaines truck - check
stop to get beer, coolers, and ice - check
Mike and Ryan make lunch sandwiches on the way to Foymount to feed the starving gang - check
Drop 700 bucks between the 4 of us - check
Get an icecream cone - check
Meet Neil at 5pm - check

So we finally put on the river at 6pm and guess we maybe have 2.5 hours max of daylight. We just almost make it Hass Hole when this fishing boat is going the other way with two paddlers in it. Blaine ran first and did fine. Mike and I tried to catch the eddy on the right but ended up swimming when we hit the shallow rrocks and stuff. Neil and Ryan finally caught up to us after and explained that the paddlers in the boat had an accident as the guy blew out his shoulder. Bummer for him but good for us. They were going to take neils vehicle from the putin to the takeout in order to get their vehicle. One less shuttle for us to do at the end of the day.

We stated boogying down the river. We were having lots of fun on the way down. Mike and I only had two more out of boat experiences. One of them happened to be at Canoe Opener on the second last set. I though we were already past it when I saw this dark shadow coming real close and had a holy crap moment and titled the boat left and just barely missed putting a hole in Ryans newly outfitted tandem boat.

We got to the takeout about 8:30. We still had enough light to walk up that frickin long hill to the parking lot. We put the gear down, changed, and had a few drinks while contemplating what we wer going to do with all the boats. We basically said WTF and shoved everything into the back of Blaines truck ... three open boats and a kayak ... the tandem hung out about 6 feet or so but we but one of those safety vests on it as a flag.

We headed back to the Coop for another round of drinks and a very late dinner of burgers, salad, chilli and more drinks before heading down to the fire for more drinks.

Sunday morning came real early. We headed over to the local restaurant for breakfast before heading off to the river for some more fun. This time everyone was paddling solo as we borrowed an extra boat from Neil. I spent some time thru-out the day taking some pics of the Coop OC and Kayak courses while getting in some of my own fun on the river.

We packed it in around 1pm and I was home back in around 5:30.

I had a fun weekend and the weather managed to acutall be nice for paddling on sat/sun.

Life has been busy

It has been a while since my last post.

I have been spending all of my free time paddling on the Ottawa River.

I spent the beginning of an 11 day paddling roadtrip including my birthday over at the National Slalom Races at the Gull River and took about 3000 pics in three days. I still need to sort through them be I post them up.

I also managed to take another thing off my paddling list. I ran Horseshoe Falls on the Gull for the first time ever. It was a pretty quick ride.

I have just finished paddling five runs on the Middle Channel of the Ottawa over the last four days and am taking a day off to relax at my dads place before heading of to BeastFeast with the CDB Crew.