Irene, Beavering, and Gauley Fest

By Elaine Campbell

The past few weeks have been crazy up here in the northeast. Irene came and caused massive destruction all over western MA and VT. The Deerfield River which is my home town river flooded to the highest it’s been in over a hundred years. It wiped out downtown Wilmington, VT and most of the roads have turned into one lane because the other half fell into the river. Rt. 100 in Readsboro the town I live in is still closed where Tunnel Vision rapid is due to the bridge being unsafe to drive over. People in the area have lost business and homes. We lost one life in Wilmington during the floods. A young woman who was trying to get home from work and was swept away by the rising river. It’s pretty crazy that a hurricane cause this much destruction in VT. If you are in the area next weekend please come to the Mt.Snow area for a music Festival called Floodstock to help raise money for the people in Wilmington who lost their homes and business and didn’t have flood insurance. Check out the website www.floodstockvt.com to see the schedule and if you can’t come please consider donating something. My husband’s rock band will be playing Saturday afternoon as well as many other great bands from all over New England.

Here are some photos from my town.

Tunnel Vision

Rt.100 in Readsboro Photos: Elaine Campbell

A happy photo after Irene in Henderson Harbor.

Photo: Mike Miller

The week after Irene was the Beaver release weekend. I headed to NY to paddle the Moshier Falls section which has one scheduled release a year. It’s such a fun run! Pretty straight forward easy creek where you can scout everything and people can walk a drop that they don’t want to run. After Moshier you head over to the Eagle which is a water park for kayakers. It’s slide after slide and pretty short so you can hike back up and do it again. This year the Eagle had it’s first race. This was the second race of the King of New York series. I raced it and was the only girl that raced. It’s a tough race because a lot of people are running the section at the same time you are and I had a few interferences during the race. Another great weekend at the Beaver!

After that I headed back up to the Ottawa to paddle for a few days before going back to VT. I got to the border crossing and realized that I took Jeff’s passport instead of mine! They let me into Canada and I was a little nervous about how it was going to be to come back into the states. It wasn’t a problem getting back in they gave me a warning about being non compliant. Anyway Garb was still in so had some sweet times there with NO lines!

Then off to Gauley Fest but first up was the upper Yough with Team NRS for a photo shoot which lasted all week and was really fun. We did upper Yough two days, then Valley Falls, New River Gorge and then the upper Gauley during the fest. The Gauley is so much fun but not the walk out in crocs! Last year when I ran the upper G I got rides out so I never new of this hike out. I didn’t bring my booties and had crocs in the back of my boat. Craig new I never done it before so he gave me a bunch of bull sh*t which was we are all most there. F no we aren’t all most there! When I finally made it to the top I was so mad but got over it quickly and yes the joke was on me! Thanks Craig! I brought my NRS creek boots the next day for the walk out and made it no problem. For future reference don’t wear crocs for the hike out! The fest this year was Friday and Saturday night. It was great times and got to practice more hula hooping (hoping no video was taken). Every booth had some type of tasty beverage and some fun activity. It’s all ways a great time at the Gauley Fest!

That’s it for now. Pretty much back in VT full time for the fall and winter. Looking forward to the fall rain to see the changes to all the rivers and creeks that changed during the flood in our area. If you come up to VT and western MA make sure you scout first since most of the rapids have changed and lot’s of debri and wood are now in the rivers and creeks.