The last few weeks I’ve been staying in central PA. Amy and I are working on a few projects to rebuild our bank so we can get back out on the road. While I’ve been here I’ve been having fun revisiting some old paddling locations from when I first started. I’ve spent a few sessions at the slalom course where I first learned to paddle and done a couple runs with Amy and Katherine down the local spring creek. Now that the truck is finally running correctly again I decided to head up to New York to check out this year’s Moose River Festival. I made the trip with my good friend and former paddling partner Robbie Fulton. We learned to paddle together as kids and raced C2 together for a while. We had been to Moose Fest once before when we were quite a bit younger and both were glad to be going back. When we were there as kids we paddled the lower section (classIV) and I remember being pretty gripped for most of it. We decided to spend Friday checking out the lower to see how it compared with our memory. I found it to be enjoyable, a little low, good scenery, but not real scary. There were two stand out class IV ish rapids and the rest was either flat or technical class III kind of water. It was really fun to revisit another place I remember from my early paddling days but way less intimidating than I remember it being. Saturday we ran the bottom section of the Moose. This is the class V section. It is pool drop with some pretty big but very manageable rapids. It was pretty cold all weekend so Amy didn’t go and as you know, I’m not very good at getting the photos with out her. I did manage to get a few of the camp we had and the party though.

Don’t let this first picture fool you. I took this during the only 5 minutes of sunshine we had. Despite the constant rain and freezing temps, our camp was pretty awesome. We were the only ones there and we were right on the river at the put in for the bottom run.

Most of Friday afternoon wasn’t too bad, but by Sunday morning we’d had enough. Saturday night it rained all night and our tent leaked. We woke up wet, cold, hungry, and with no place to cook but in the pouring rain. After a couple hours of deliberation and procrastination we decided to just pack up and head home early. We had a very comfortable warm and dry breakfast at Denny’s on our way.

Saturday night there was a pretty good band playing in the town of Old Forge. This is the nearest town to the river. It’s about 45 minutes away. The little bar, Slickers, was packed with folks who were ready for a party. I guess some of them were just really stoked on Halloween and couldn’t wait. There were a number of super heros in attendance along with this very colorful group.

I had planned to come home from the Moose today but since I came home a day early I was able to join Amy and Katherine for a little float on Spring Creek.