Heather and Barry's Homepage

As a start to our day, Barry decided to give us a tour of the Eastern Coastline of Lake Ontario along Route 3 in NY because he turned the wrong way out of the campsite. :)

After turning around, we went on a little shopping spree in an attempt to find an official Boy Scout utensil set (Barry’s is still going strong after twenty-five years, while Heather’s imitation product is a cheap piece of crap.) We eventually learned that we needed to go to to purchase such an item. A road trip is obviously not conducive to ordering on-line, so we punted and headed to the river.

The parking lot to Hole Brothers, which yesterday was packed with cars having roof-racks for white-water boats, was deserted. The only occupants were construction workers who had cut down all of the trees leading to the river so that they could replace the utility poles that have been present since our first visit here five years ago. This is relevant only because when Barry and I took our first voyage to this park-and-play spot, we took a picture of a sign reading “Hole Brothers” that was posted on these poles.

We checked in with the nearby Hudson River Rafting Company to see if anyone was running the river section we ran yesterday so that we could do it again because we wanted to get pictures of the trip. There wasn’t, but one of the men who worked there remembered me as “the kayaker who got worked in Cruncher” and said again how impressed he was.

We finally put in the river around 3:30ish PM. The water, as always, was delightfully warm. We both took turns surfing the main hole (see pictures), tried the far river right hole, which is usually much too low but at today’s level of 5000 cfs was fine. Barry was a stud-muffin as he practiced his flat spins and blunts. He also told me that he threw four ends of a cartwheel in the pocket on surfers right, but I didn’t see him, so who’s to say it actually happened? :-P [Heather, by the way, also got some of her best surf rides ever—-but she’d never admit to that because she’d be forced to acknowledge that she is actually a good paddler. :-) —Barry] After exhausting ourselves, we dragged ourselves out of the water around 6:00 PM.

While playing, we met a woman named Molly, who ironically, was the same Molly we heard a story about yesterday. (It was introducing myself to her that made me miss Barry’s cartwheel.) As I mentioned in our previous posting, the Black River starts with Knife Edge, a challenging and potentially dangerous class IV rapid. Apparently, at the bottom of the last ledge, if you do not get far enough to the right, you can pin on a rock. Don’t worry parents - we’re still alive - we made the required “Bee Line” move and are writing to tell about it :). Unfortunately, Molly did not. She too survived, but her boat was pinned on the said rock for a week until the water level dropped and people were able to fish it out of the river. She says we can see pictures of her repaired kayak at (assuming we remember the website correctly).

After a hard play on the river, we were famished. Just downstream of the parking lot, we went to a lovely restaurant recommended to us by the person who bought my first kayak from me. The Black River Brewing Company, despite the fact that neither Barry nor I drink, had scrumptious food, and was kind enough to lend us power with which we could post this entry.