So there I was running one of the more difficult class V runs to be found in NY backwards on a $50 bet. Thoughts of my sweet one year old son and his beautiful mother did NOT fill my mind. Survival was the focus here. How to pull off this stunt without getting flipped, swimming or worse. Marty probably didn’t think anyone would really take him up on his offer for $50 to run it backwards. The decision was already made before I started not to accept the money from him, so why was I doing it? Fame, fortune, glory? No, I was doing it because I wanted to prove to myself that I had put off running the Eagle section of the Beaver to a point in my paddling career where I could run it backwards. The crowds faded from my mind and all I could think about was, where is my boat, where am I pointed, am I ready to brace? Complete focus. The run was not pretty, but better than many other paddler’s forward facing runs.
I took the $50 from Marty just to make him sweat it for a second then I gave it back and told him if he really wanted to get rid of the money to donate it to AW. My karma could not deal with a blow like having taken another paddler’s money on a bet to run something that I had NOT gotten hammered on. There was other people that swam that day, none of the swimmers escaped totally unscathed, several sucked quite a bit of water, especially on the first big hole at Taylorville. That hole swam me last year when I dropped in to play on purpose. After about 5 seconds I knew it was going to be really hard to get out of it. After almost a minute of surfing (mostly upright) I had bailed out and started recirculating. After a mere 15 seconds and about 4 recircs I swam out. Others this weekend were not so lucky. One guy had 4 bags join him in the hole, to no avail. Its pretty easy to forget that even really good boaters can (and do) drown. The water has become my playground and in order to feel what is really happening, the fear of death must be released.
The first night Mike and I were there I talked him into sliding down Taylorville’s 2nd slide on my Themarest pad. The headlamp I was wearing bounced down onto my nose and made a couple of incisions as I careened down the bumpy slide laughing maniacally the whole way down. It was pretty fun and we vowed to take the Thermarest pads down during the full release on the next day. There was a bunch of little worms that got all over us from our slide and we meticulously cleaned them all off. It must have looked pretty bizarre to anyone watching, two full grown men standing naked in a pool of water at night examining each other’s bodies head to toe with headlamps.
The first release on Taylorville went without much comment except for 2 guys that nearly drowned in the first bad hole. After almost 10 runs down the slide including a Thermarest run for good measure we continued on to run the rest of the river. We made multiple runs down most of the drops and headed over to Eagle. My first several runs of Eagle went surprisingly well. I ran it backwards once scared out of my wits then run it a bunch more times forwards. There are lots of people that race to run class V stuff early on in their paddling career (I used to be one of them) but the last 2 years I have put off running Eagle just because I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. By the time I did run it there were many other runs under my belt which had been MUCH more challenging that Eagle.
There was a lot of fragmentation in the paddling community. In the past where there had been one big fire that all the paddlers had worked their way over to. Now it seemed that there were many fires including groups from Canada, the Black River boys, the NJ crew and the Plattsburg boaters. It was interesting moving from one fire to the next watching the different dynamics. Not the least interesting of which was the Black River Hudson rafting crew who were partying completely naked. It would have been a lot more interesting if it had been more than just guys, alas their attempts to attract women by partying naked apparently failed. Better luck next year I suppose.
Over the past couple weeks I had been toying with the idea of buying a jetski. For someone who volunteers for AW it may seem like a conflict of interests, but I had no idea exactly how noisy and dangerous jetskis really were. Ithaca is right on a lake so maybe I could fill some of those boring weekdays with a little water and adrenaline. Getting up on the old-school jetski was difficult to say the least. It made for quite interesting spectating however as people gathered around to watch me get dragged around the lake behind the jetski like a wet sock. I flailed pitifully in repeated attempts to get up. After several attempts I pretty much decided that it wasn’t my thing. Thank goodness I tried it out before investing in one, it would have been a tragedy to invest a bunch of money and not enjoy it at all. Instead I ended up selling my well-loved Forplay in anticipation for buying one of the new playboats getting released in the fall.
That night laying in bed I thought about paddling class V stuff backwards and how it felt. I thought about the anticipation and fear of not knowing what was going to happen to you and when. More crazed ideas of running other class V stuff backwards filled my head. I fell asleep under the stars dreaming of running the Bottom Moose backwards from beginning to end. It was a cool great evening until it started raining in the middle of the night. Running to the car in my undies I searched for the tent and set it up. After it was set up the sprinkling stopped, but I crawled in anyways to get away from the black flies that had joined me.
Moshier was kicking the next day and Mike and I spent a lot of time scoping out that first drop coming off the dam. There is a bit of confusion as to who has run it and from where and at what level. Scouting for over an hour 3 times at 2 different levels we agreed that the safest bet would be a ½ release run from below the falls on river right to start and to work our way up from there. Its funny because unlike most boaters Mike and I are not interested in getting first descents although I’m sure we’ve run our fair share. Its not like that for us, its about exploring and pushing our own limits. I think when you’re measuring yourself up against other paddlers you sell yourself short and increase the risk for death and dismemberment pretty substantially. For the first time in my paddling career I wanted to run something Mike wanted to skip. Although we ended up not running it I felt pretty interested at the dynamic of the complete role reversal of what had been. Usually its me trying to convince Mike not to run something, it was nice to have it go the other way for a change. In any case, there is always next year…
After a couple runs down Moshier I headed over to Eagle. Only
planning to do a couple of runs I kept saying "just one more run, or until
the power guy comes and shuts off the water". The power guy was about
45 minutes late so needless to say I made way more runs than I planned
to. That evening I rode around on my mountain bike begging food from
one site to another. After it got dark I continued my rounds tearing
through the woods with my headlight equipped bike. The locals ride
along the top of the 15' diameter water pipes in their dirt bikes for a
good time, but I didn't think I wanted to pit my sanity against that of
the locals. Eric got dragged around in an easy chair towed behind
a four wheeler. Apparently he was the first person to ever flip the
trailer, but that may have been just a coincidence seeing as how he was
also probably also the first non-local to participate in the local's version
of the X-games. Apparently the locals also tube Taylorville and Eagle
when they are running at flood, not just these piddly release levels.
Come to think of it Eagle would be a pretty good run in an innertube ….
Nah…
Karl
The best damn Beaver I ever had
Contributed by: Karl Gesslein
Location of put in: Belfort, NY
Approximate class: Class IV to V
Estimated length: 2 miles
I never thought I would do a trip report, but there
I was on the Beaver having the time of
my life and thinking, how do I tell people about
this?
Everyone must know what an awesome river this is
so they get to experience it at least
once. Its all a blur, running those rapids and dropping
off waterfall after waterfall, I
remember leaping out of my boat and dragging it
back up again and again like a starving
lemming trying to snuff itself once and for all.
The Taylorville section was a nice meandering 2 mile
run with several rapids who have yet
to me named. There was the hole near the put in
that munched one hapless kayaker after
another. Just sitting in the pool after the first
rapid I pulled out at least 5 swimmers. Then
onto the 30' slide with the mother of all holes
at the bottom. People kept trying in vain to
punch it and while those who glanced off the 7'
pile survived the ones that hit it head on
were tossed about as if in a blender then spit out
as if the water didn't like the flavor of
kayakers.
Then came a narrow chasm with meaty hole after meaty
hole. The river left run provided a
nice little sluce just big enough to pass a boat
at high velocity before dumping them through
a nasty hole. Then came the last rapid or maybe
it was two rapids, who knows. There was
a narrow sluce on river right that was intimidating
to all but the best Class V boaters. Then
the central run dumped you into a diagonal hole
that would carry boaters downstream and
spit them out. Then there was a boof move drop in
the center of the river which dumped the
kayaker into an awesome riverwide side surf hole
followed by a nice glassy cresting surfing
wave.
People who weren't in a rush to run up and run the
stretch again would just play at the take
out until the water dropped. Then everyone went
to Eagle to watch the really good boaters
run the biggest decent per mile river I had ever
seen. In the .15 mile section the river
dropped over 300 feet. Narrow sluces and chutes
big enough for a boater to slide down at
high velocity before punching the nasty holes that
waited at the bottom of every drop. I was
sorely tempted to run it but my lack of elbow pads
and my excess of sanity prevented it.
Instead I settled for watching some great boaters
do run after run. I watched them closely
examining the lines and the style that each boater
used. I created a plan for the day that I
plopped my butt in there and ran that stretch.
The next morning came Moshier which was a little
longer, maybe 3 or 4 miles but included
some great vertical drops. The first waterfall could
be run on river left for a straight forward
drop of about 15 feet or on river right there was
a spiffy move that splatted a diagonal rock
and spun you 90 degrees to the left before dropping
you into the hole. The good move there
was to either catch the eddie at the 90 degree turn
or to splat the rock so fast they you
boofed over it and dumped into the eddie on top
of you ever was waiting there to watch
you get munched. I ran that drop until I was sufficiently
exhausted ten paddled onto the next
drop.
The next water fall while higher was relatively straightforward
was a little more intimidating
due to the fact that there was a wall of rocks about
12 feet in front of the falls. The boof
move down the center was safe unless you wandered
too far to river right in which case the
hole would munch you and hold onto the boat. This
relatively benign looking drop ended up
munching a solid V+ hair boater who missed the line
a little to the right. Luckily he was OK
and continued on. The last drop was actually 3 drops
in one. I didn't know that and ran the
first one then the second one blind and scouted
the third one. These three drops represent
some of the best Class V whitewater I have ever
seen. It was knarly and unforgiving.
Luckily there was no swimmers that day as most paddlers
who weren't feeling 100%
confident tended to walk this rapid. I ran it twice
and it was a religious experience. I cannot
wait to run it again.
The best part of my trip was going out on Taylorville
at low water with Mike Burns and my
girlfriend. We ran all the rapids to give her a
feel for what it would be like then we slid down
the last rapid on our butts. I have never laughed
so hard in my life as we went down feet
first then head first then Mike went down standing
up. I knew right then that Mike was one
of the best people I had ever met. That night at
around midnight I managed to get several
boaters onto the river under the full moon and we
ran the first two drops. The whole at the
bottom of the second slide was a little meatier
probably because they had shut down one of
the turbines but we ran the slide time after time.
One boater had a flashlight on the front of
his boat with duck tape and another had a glow stick
on his helmet. It was truly a riot and
possibly the best time I have ever had kayaking.
We took turns spinning in the hole until we
were dizzy and the boat with the flashlight was
a riot to watch go around and around. One
paddler said that was going to become a tradition
at Taylorville and I can only say that I
hope so. I hope that all paddlers get to have such
positive and fun experiences kayaking.
The most important part of kayaking is to pick your
own line, to do things your own way
and to figure things out for yourself. I am forever
in debt to the people that helped teach me
that this weekend.
Karl
Trip Report from my 2nd trip to the Beaver
My trip to the Beaver was pretty humbling. After not swimming for well over a year I was stuck swimming out of not one, but two holes that weekend. There is no one to blame but myself though, but I thought I'd recap it quickly so maybe someone else can learn from my stupid mistakes.
I was really excited to put on the Taylorville section after several hours of driving. When I ran the first rapid I didn't scout it and dropped into the big hole at the bottom thinking I would throw a couple ends then ender out to the amazement of all my friends who were watching. I dropped into the hole which looked benign enough and started so pretty nasty sidesurfing. I stayed in for awile without flipping and I was desperately trying to paddle out of the hole. No such luck, the hole finally got me and I started to get really tossed around in my boat upsidedown, I couldn't find the surface of the hole and was getting exausted quickly. I got out of my boat. Now the hole was going to spit me out right? Wrong. I recirculated about 5 times and didn't get out till I swam down and crawled along the bottom of the river. Rob got it all on videotape and I'm sure its just as entertaining to watch as it was to be in there, but I was pretty frightened after about the 4th recirculation. Anyways, I continued onto the 30' slide which turned out to be great fun as Mike and I took turns seeing how many spins we could get on the way down before dropping in and surfing the hole. The hole at the bottom was pretty fun except it was tough to get out of once you really got in it. The people running the slide would get the deer in the headlights look as they came straight towards you as breakneck speed while you made desperate attempts to get out of the hole. Although 2 boats joined me in that hole, there was no boater collisions and after getting my face smushed onta rock from flipping in the hole Mike and I paddled on.
Then I flipped again on the little V slot that was upstream on river left after the second drop. Man now I was getting frusterated. I drove to the Eagle section and carried my boat down to the put in. After scouting and watching some REALLY good boaters run Eagle and make little mistakes here and there I decided to skip it, I was not having a good day. Maybe tommorrow.
That evening was pretty fun, and there was lots of people there I knew who were partying down and having a great time. It was pitch black and there was next to no water so we didn't make a midnight run even though I really wanted to, instead Marlo, the baby and I curled up in the van together and went to bed.
The next day we made it to Moshier and I was not feeling so tip-top. I took the Mr. Clean, a move I would later regret. Mike, John and I climbed about a third of the way up the first very scarey rapid at Moshier. I went up a little further and I'm pretty sure its runable, the problem is the big rocks right in the main flow that would pulverize your ankles in a flash. We scraped down the left. The first two waterfalls of Moshier were just like I remembered them, which was nice because Eagle looked way harder than I remembered it. Then came a couple of small class IV rapids after words. There was a big hole that John got backendered out of in his infrared, Mike tried to sneak it to the left and I kindof half-heartedly did to. It wasn't till I was in the backwash frantically paddling that I realized I should have come in with much more speed. I got sucked in, surfed flipped, then flipped somemore until I finally got out and swam down and out of the hole. Apparently they got a good chuckle at my little feet kicking in the air out of the foam pile as I swam out the bottom. I was not as amused. I lost a bootie and was really missing my creekboat. The Mr. Clean recirculated for a long time till until mike went into the hole in his Storm and managed to bulldoze it out. By now I was feeling pretty stupid.
The last rapid of Moshier was exactly the way I remembered it. Hard-core. I scouted for awhile and ran it. Marlo was waiting so I took off right away after only one run. It was uneventful except that I was a little short on the left boof on the 2nd to last drop and went more into the crack than I wanted to be. I punched the middle of the big diagonal hole at the bottom of the big slide in the middle and that turned out to be not a bad line since it avoided the turbulent eddyline on river right altogether. When Jon was trying to catch the little eddy above the slide he wasn't getting in fast enough and some asshole on shore was yelling at him "You're not going to make it". I wanted to throw my paddle at his head. When someone is tryiny to get into an eddy you don't scream discouraging things at him, you try to encourage him. Man I was pissed. At the last drop I ran it far right and submerged for about 10 seconds before the boat came up again.
If someone trys to tell you that the Mr. Clean is a good creek boat, they're lying to you and trying to kill you. Next year I'll be running Moshier in the Mongoose and having a lot more fun doing it.
Anyways, there was a couple of people that got beat up pretty bad on the last drop of Moshier, I didn't see who they were, but Marlo was pretty upset by it. We were happy to be on the road and heading home again.
On the way home I did a lot of thinking. I came to the realization that I'm not as good of a paddler as I think I am. We have ideas about how we want to be seen by others as and my image of how I want others to see me and the reality of it are two harshly different things. I want to grow old, really old. I want to be a grumpy white haired man who chides young paddlers and says shit like...
"Damn you kids, when I was young we didn't have these fancy unbreakable sythethic spider sillk kayaks and anti gravity PFD's. We didn't wear kevlar body armor on the river and have helmets with force field generators on them. When we screwed up we got hammered, maybe we broke our paddles, or our boats or our faces, but we liked it, we liked it just fine. If we wanted to show off and drop into a hole we'd do uncontrolled cartwheels until we puked then would get worked in the hole till we'd have to swim and crawl along the bottom grabbing rocks hand over hand to get out. Damn you kids."
That is my dream. With enough caution and good sense I know I can get there.
Karl