The fest started with a party on Friday night at Challengers....a few took to the water in various states of (un)dress for Gladiators, with the winner being the one who avoided getting knocked from the raft. And they say we're nuts....didn't notice any of us out there in our birthday suits at sub-freezing temperatures. I stayed nicely huddled near the blazing fire trying to avoid singeing my clothing from the heat
Camped at Singing Waters Friday night and Saturday was "safety boating" with a bunch of kayakers on the Middle. Jo and myself were in our OC1s and were the only single bladers in the group of 14 (way too many people for a fast run in cold weather). Still, we had a decent enough run - I ran Nelson's Fall for the first time nailing a clean dry line until just before the last drop when I took on some water and got messed around by one of those lovely inconsequential holes you don't even notice when scouting. Made it through the hole though, which was all I cared about
I heard a few others made some runs in open boats too, but I was busy downstream freeing a pinned boat ('yak) whose owner "swam" just above the main drop at Nelson's, so I didn't get to see them.Saw LEW just after that paddling tandem. He and his partner were looking as elegant and controlled as ever! Good stuff guys! Met another open boater who was paddling with some other friends of mine (one of whom I am in the process of converting to the ways of the single blade
)Rest of the run continued with a few swims from the yakers and me floating along beside them. I've got some questions about swimmer and kayak rescue in a solo open boat, but will post that in another topic. We dropped all the beginners and a bunch of cold folks at the Rte 28 bridge and continued on down, running the last few miles down to the Iron Bridge take out in ~45minutes.
At the fest, Sat night I encountered LEW again and also met up with Andy Westwood, Mark Scriver, and Bob Z, amongst others whose names escape me for now. Chris Craigmile is also apparently going to be trying some open boating soon, so be sure to give him a hand if you see him. He's apparently laid a bet that, without any reasl instruction, he'll be able to roll an OC1 (Prelude) within 10 tries. That should be amusing
Oh, and I picked up my new Groove on Saturday night YEAHAAA!
Just as the fest was breaking up, it started to snow. Jo had returned to Ithaca, so I drove down the road and slept in my car - it's kind of cool waking up to see the windows coated with snow and everything white for the first time of the year. There was about an inch that came down over night - enough to warm things up a little and make everything look clean and fresh.
The Moose was still at 4.8ft Sunday, so our plans for the bottom were scrapped and the Lower was nixed as being too long. Watched some runs at Fowlersville for a while (we only saw one person end up in the hole and that was bad luck rather than a notably bad line) and contemplated our navels, the weather, waterlevels and the world in general. We saw one C1'er paddle it - who was this? I think I got a pretty good photo of him and will post it when I get it off my camera. Finally managed to motivate people into running the Independence. We were just putting on when a group of Canadians in OCs came down - Andy the Aussie from Canada introduced me to Martin. Great to meet you Martin and sorry again we didn't get to paddle together.....trust a 'yaker to hold the group up
The Independence was a rocking good run (quite literally - pinball anyone?) Continuous rock dodging for a good long while. I really love that run although I'm sure my boat is less favourably disposed to it
It was even warm and sunny for a while 
So, what did everyone else end up paddling?
