Lehigh - Saturday - May 26, 2012

[RB]

This is Jill... Rick was too tired to post a trip report last evening, but I'll just bet he'll do it today.  It was a fun day and Rick was in his element helping folks out.  I hope his explanations of "reading water" was helpful to some of you.  He was happy too that I'm over my swimming hangover and back in the saddle again so to speak.  There was an energetic, happy, encouraging young gal at second lunch in a purple Jackson FUN that was encouraging folks to get on the wave - even trainees on sit-on-tops!  She almost had me talked into it, maybe next time.  Thanks everyone for a fun day. 

[Splash]

Too tired to post a trip report? I guess this is what we will have to accept from the "Lion", a new low operating standard. I'll jump in and do the "Lion" share of the work for ya RB, don't bother getting up now wouldn't want you to miss your much needed rest. We had a pretty big group on Saturday, I decided to do the Lehigh because many of my friends were up there and I wanted to socialize with them. Chris H and his amazing family took rafts down and Emily their only member in a hard boat went with them even though it would have been fun to see her kayaking skills. They took off before us and that's the last we ever saw of them. Next, one of our members got sucked into the low head dam at Ledges (I think that's the name). He popped his top and swam free but the boat did not. Sam Mains volunteered to do a baited rescue but the boat chundered its way across the dam and was let go on the far right side. When I hit No Way there was a full size raft wrapped completely around a rock so I stopped and watched the action.  Then I decided to start offering advice as to how to get it un pinned but the nice raft guide shouted me down and told me what a piece of "beep" I was and to get out of there. Then Clark's boat floated by but no Clark with it and I saw Shawn trying to wrangle it. So I called "Tally Ho" to the kind raft guide and jumped in with Shawn on the wrangle. Pyranha jumped in as well and we got it out below the rapid. We then saw Clark making his way down the rocks. Nearby was the legendary "Walt" sitting perfectly positioned to rescue the downed kayaker. Walt put Clark into the front of his 1 person canoe and brought Clark down to his boat.  Awesome pick up Walt! Shawn did rescue, by hand, a sit on topper at No Way as well. Great job Shawn Mains! So next we hit second lunch and played Pyranha threw a perfect 60 pt. loop nice! Then we go to the take out it rained so that was no good but on the way home Walt, Clark, and I were going through the town of Magoo and the flooding rains had just hit so Walt said "You guys want to do some real whitewater? " I told Walt that I didn't think it was a good idea but he slammed on the pedal and we naviagated through flooded back roads with debris floating around us and brown rageing water everywhere. Walt was totally doing things in a car I've never seen, his skills at navigating whitewater from behind the wheel were amazing. Walt schooled us young punks on what it means to be fearless. We finally got to the 901 saw some others from our group had dinner and then back home. Great trip, lots of fun and priceless memories. This is just what I saw so other stories may differ.

[RB]

By my slightly unofficial count I think there were 21 of us at the start, that's if Casey Holladay brought a friend. If not then 20.

  The weather was great, sunny at first then clouding up and some rumblings of thunder were heard near the end of the trip. The water temps were in the low 60's and once you got wet it was nicely refreshing.

  The putin was pretty crazy around 10-10:30 but by the time we got back from the shuttle it had really cleared out. It all turned out pretty well as we didn't really see all that much raft traffic on the river.

  I was unaware that "the Holladay Clan" had gotten on the water before the rest of the group. All the time on the water I was thinking they were behind us and would catch up until someone pointed out that they had gotten on the water ahead of us and we never did cathc up to them.
  Tony Lobato and Tim Garland said right from the start that if they disappear don't worry, they might paddle on ahead of the group. I did see them on the water... but not for long.

  The rest of the group switched back and forth giving the chance to see and paddle with most in the remaining group.
  We had a swim at Triple Drop and another swim and a long boat chase at No Way that took some time buy we finally got down to the bottom of Ledges (Second Lunch) and stopped to grab a bite and watch some of the surfing action at the wave.

  Lisa and Bart Baer had a great run and even though Lisa said all she was looking for was to get down the river I lead them, as well as Clark, thru some of the less direct routes hitting some eddies and doing some ferries. The Lehigh is a great place to practice some of these skills that are needed to move up to harder runs. Everyone did great on most of the stuff we tried. Maybe I should have taken a more direct route at the top of No Way !!!

  I noticed early on that Jill had a smile on her face. This wasn't her first time back in the boat, but it was her first down river run, since the "Nescopeck Incident " as I refer to it now.... and I was happy to see she was having fun !!

  I also noticed Beth Main was looking oh so relaxed and at ease. Especially as she ran the center line over Triple Drop with a smile on her face, Shawn following her lead.
  I had moved on down the river by the time 'the swim' occured at Triple Drop and missed Shawn volunteering to do a live bait rescue of the boat the held in the drop, only to be dissapointed as the boat came free on it's own.
  I did see Shawn help some young girl out of the water about 2/3rds the way down thru No Way. She was pretty shaken up and had gotten banged up during her swim.

  We didn't get to say much to anyone at the takeout since about the time we were loading up the boats in Mike's turck and getting done changing cloths it was starting to rain.
  So we hurried and got out of there and headed to White Haven to pick up the van before it really cut loose. We did hit some really heavy rain on I-81 for a good stretch of highway before getting off at the Hegins exit.

  We contemplated stopping at the 901 pub but not knowing if others were going to be there opted to continue on towards home to put an end to another fun trip to the Lehigh.

  Next release we'll try a trip on the Lower (Rockport to Glen Onoko) section for something a little different.

[RB]

I don't think anyone on our trip took any photos but there was a magnetic sticker from "MYLEHIGHPHOTOS.COM" on my van when I got back to the putin at the end of the trip. They now have photos up for May 26, 2012 and most of our group got at least one or more shots near the beginning of the trip.


http://gallery.mikebaileyphotography.com/g/may_26_2012

Starting with 8391 Tony L
8397 Tim G
8450 Jill W
8456 Stuart S
8458 Mike M (the brown claw brothers)
8461 Pete S (the brown claw brothers)
8464 Beth M
8467 Shawn M
8470 Chris D
8473 Tom S
8476 Dan S
8478 RB
8484 Clark B
8486 Bart B
8489 Lisa B
8491 Stu P
and ending with 8493 Walt S.