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.
