Moosefest Pregame Fun

October 16, 2005

What a great few days! I’ve been traveling with the
one and only Corey Volt. We started the long drive from Rock Island Wednesday
at around noon o’clock, after frantically packing up the Jackson Kayak
Duelly F–350 and enjoying our last great coffee for a week. 10 1/2 hours
later we were in Chambersburg, enjoying WiFi in the hotel room and some
incredible mullet-sightings in the morning. We met up with our friend
Jeremy Laucks on the way north and headed straight to Fish Creek in NY.
None of us had run it, but all had heard that it’s one of the best play
runs in the east. Fish Creek had miles of sweet wave trains, fun holes,
and a few strainers to dodge. The real highlight of the trip was that
we put-on very late in the day, so that we arrived at the take-out in
the dark. We found this INCREDIBLE wave right at the take-out with an
eddy. It would rival the NR Dries wave #1 at 25,000! Unfortunately it
was really dark, so we couldn’t really watch each other’s rides or see
our take-offs as we surfed. Sorry, no pics…too dark.

Friday we woke-up and headed back to the Fish Creek
take-out wave, expecting more fun, joined by Canadian Jen. The level had
risen to 4′ on the gauge, which caused the wave to be washed-out–did
I mention that it had been raining TONS here in NY and every little drainage
ditch is a runnable river? After a lot of crying and shaking our fists
at the river, we decided to head towards Old Forge and do some creeking.
We set our sights on the Independence, and sent Jen up to shoot photos
of the sick slide about 1/2 mile upstream. Corey, Jeremy, and I then headed
up to the put-in based on the directions we got from a nice local in Lyon’s
Falls. We put-on and started running some fun class 4+ slides and bogey
water, becoming increasingly suspicious that we might be on the wrong
creek. We arrived at a dam about 1/2 way down the run, which was PUMPING
and made a sick drop that only Jeremy ran. When we got to the road, our
suspicions were confirmed: We had run Otter Creek and had to walk our
boats about a mile down the road to our trucks at the Independence! I
scrambled-up and to get Jen, then we ran shuttle for Corey and Jeremy
to run the Indy. Jen and I had to book-it to Old Forge to set-up the JK
Party at Malloys.

Malloys is a very cool bar and restaurant where I stood-up
some boats, set-up a table with free schwag, and waited for the party
to begin. Nick’s the owner, and Max was our bartender who was extremely
busy all night! LOTS of people showed-up for free beer and fun. We did
a contest for a free T-Shirt: people had to try to throw a JK Frisbee
across the bar into the cockpit of a Super Hero. We gave-out lots of frisbees,
hats, stickers, and bottle openers. I met a lot of really cool boaters
and locals, many of whom owned Jackson boats and were extremely friendly.
After the free beer was over, Jen and I headed out and stopped by the
Pyrhana party, run by OKS staff Matt Hamilton.

We’re all on our way to Watertown this morning for
some big wave action at Inner City Strife, then to the festival tonight.
More tomorrow, enjoy the pics!

Live from NY,
Stephen Wright