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This is a blog. Nothing is different in this than my trip report but evidently blogging makes it magical.
7 of us left Brads on the Sunday after HOHW to run the upper pet.
The plan was for a fast run on the upper pet before the KWP showed up and clogged all the rapids with swimmers and boats.
We met some boaters at the registration for the park but they were waiting for more boaters so we took off down the road hoping to be the first ones on.
As I was driving at my leisurely pace into the park, I noticed another vehicle following us.
It had canoes on the roof!!!!!! DA Da DAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa.
Canoes? What are they following us for?
Anyway it turned out that Greg, fresh from entertaining the troops on the town section of the pet had decided to show off a few new moves to his buddies in the GKC. Sideshow Greg (as he with any luck will now be known) proceeded to show us the tip to the left roll and swim, the tip to the right roll and swim and the look like you are going to swim then get tagged by a rock and pop up not swimming moves.
Years of practice did not disappoint. Greg has these moves down to a science. But the mind is an odd thing and my mind may be a littler odder than others. Because after he had shown us his move I thought, ok you've shown us those tricks why are you doing them all over again? Then I got thinking that canoeists are weird. I mean after canoes stopped hauling goods they really outlived their usefulness. Sure we have to thank them for opening up Canada. The coureur de bois carrying much need supplies to upper Canada, trading furs, spreading small pocks etc. Then later them carrying much need beer to kayakers. But times have changed there are better options.
Hell, if you were into biking and some guy showed up at the bike ride with a certain type of bike that has a design flaw. The kind of design flaw that causes the front wheel to fall off causing the guy to crash and spread his belongings all over the road a few times a trip. Wouldn't you question his sanity? When you questioned his sanity, if the answer was that it was more of a challenge to ride this weird bike with the messed up wheel. Wouldn't you know he was insane? But somehow we just accept these canoe heads as rational members of society who have jobs and a license to drive an automobile. We pick them up off the road but them back together talk about their grazed knuckles and continue.
So on this trip my mind was working overtime. No one can be that crazy I thought. There must be something in this swim thing. Maybe they got some weird erotic pleasure from all this swimming. Well, I couldn't help myself, I had to try it out for myself. Of course I couldn't just tip over in a class 3 riffle and swim. My fellow paddlers would be wise to that in an instant. We were already past the hole that ate Richard, we were by Brads beat down and nobody would swim Poplar for pleasure ( or so I thought).
Anyway so the only logical choice was Boulder Falls (Not sure if that's the name I checked on river wiki and that seems an apt description)
So while most of the group scouted, I chose the best way I knew to get my swim on. I followed Richard. According to Richard, I'm an idiot and missed the line completely. None of that matters because I got exactly what I wanted. Parallel parked in a hole/pourover at the bottom. At first I had forgotten my plan and tried to escape. I side surfed, then it flipped me. I waited it out and rolled but was back in the hole. The water pouring over the boulder confused be because it was upstream a couple of feet. This made me forget my swim plan again and when I flipped I tried the trick Richard told me about. I reached deep while upside down and tried to paddle out. My boat did not want to leave the hole. Then I remembered that I really wanted to swim anyway. So I jammed my knees into the skirt and tried to pop it. That didn't work so I pulled the skirt with one hand and held the paddle with the other. I then used my paddle to help pull me out of the boat and downstream. VICTORY!!!!!!!! I was swimming. My first gasp of air and there was Richard. Strangely he didn't have the same look of triumph that I was feeling. In fact, he looked downright disappointed. Anyway I didn't have time to ponder that, I was going to enjoy my swim. So I happily swam to the shore while Richard waited for my boat to flush. He then dragged it to shore and left it there with hardly a word to me. Then he paddled to the bottom of the sneak to watch Greg swim his line. I thought my swim was any bit as good as Greg's but Richard couldn't seem to care less. In fact he told me off further downstream. Evidently if you aren't completely out of air you shouldn't be allowed to swim. Since I had plenty of oxygen left, it was my duty to stay in my boat until I was too tired and oxygen starved to fight any longer. Obviously he doesn't know shit about swimming.
Also that sneaky jerk Rob tried to follow my line and get his swim on but lacking my experience he managed to paddle his way out of the hole.
In the end. I still don't get canoes. I swam a mile in their shoes but still do not understand them. My swim was ok but nothing to write a trip report about.
In fact just to prove my theory about how weird they are, Greg swam popular twice. Kind of greedy if you ask me.
At the take out we gave Greg his new nickname (Sideshow Greg), drank our booty beers (Evidently swims are like dog years for canoeists. They only need one beer for every seven swims) Harris drank the booty beer left owing from his Lovers swim on Saturday and we drove off leaving Harris, Mike and Rob to hope that Erwin could find the Travers lake road take out with his car.
Before we left, we stretch wrapped Sue Taffs car and stretched the beer boxes I owed Cale to here bumper.
This year at HOHW the GKC didn't place a raft team, KWP won by default even though 3 chunks of driftwood beat their time. So for the first time in history the KWP are drinking GKC beer without having to steal it.
HOHW Wrap up: GKC kicked serious butt in the downriver race. Our top 6 boaters posted blistering times. The times were so incredible that Cale decided to try to win that by default as well. He said that we needed one woman in the race. I guess he realized that Cortney and Alex weren't there, that Cathy was busy volunteering all day. So he figured he could get us on a technicality. Little did he know that Shaunna is a member of the GKC. She has her own personalized hoodie and was given free membership for a year because of the impressive physical prowess she displayed while beating James in a foot race during the KOC.
Also of note is that Richard posted the fasted short boat time 7:53. Beating Adam Chapel by a mere 2 seconds.
In the long boat race the fastest time was 6:53 cam smedley who is a slalom boater.
Joel Bernard was the fastest GKC member at 7:18 followed by Richard 7:21 Kyle 7:38 Kevin 8:02 Art 8:07 and Rob 8:09. Shaunna posted 8:34
In Comparison the Mighty Cale reader posted a time of 8:17 but he did pause during his run to talk about his feelings with his Wife Stephanie. That evidently cost him some time.
Other notables were Greg posting 12:22 and 22:13 in one of those boats that the wheels fall off.
There is some talk of a new timing system where rodeo moves remove time from your run. It's possible that Gregs time will improve as a result.
Sadly Wayne was a No show because he couldn't find the starting line.
Todd Ames of the KWP was a no show because he couldn't find his balls after a horrendous swim over lovers during a practice run.
A great big thank you to the Pettawawa River rats and a the town of Pettawawa for hosting this amazing event. Thank you for protecting the river and showcasing what a fabulous jewel this river is.
Thank you to Brad and Kim for allowing some of us to stay at your house even though you are far too busy to take on that extra burden. We all appreciated it.
Well, that's all I can think of right now. Feel free to add anything you can remember.
I should mention who the 7 were. I figured someone could have filled in a blank or two.
Erwin, Rob, Andrew, Mike, Kevin, Richard, and Art where outfitted in appropriate boats. Greg was in a canoe.
7 of us left Brads on the Sunday after HOHW to run the upper pet.
The plan was for a fast run on the upper pet before the KWP showed up and clogged all the rapids with swimmers and boats.
We met some boaters at the registration for the park but they were waiting for more boaters so we took off down the road hoping to be the first ones on.
As I was driving at my leisurely pace into the park, I noticed another vehicle following us.
It had canoes on the roof!!!!!! DA Da DAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa.
Canoes? What are they following us for?
Anyway it turned out that Greg, fresh from entertaining the troops on the town section of the pet had decided to show off a few new moves to his buddies in the GKC. Sideshow Greg (as he with any luck will now be known) proceeded to show us the tip to the left roll and swim, the tip to the right roll and swim and the look like you are going to swim then get tagged by a rock and pop up not swimming moves.
Years of practice did not disappoint. Greg has these moves down to a science. But the mind is an odd thing and my mind may be a littler odder than others. Because after he had shown us his move I thought, ok you've shown us those tricks why are you doing them all over again? Then I got thinking that canoeists are weird. I mean after canoes stopped hauling goods they really outlived their usefulness. Sure we have to thank them for opening up Canada. The coureur de bois carrying much need supplies to upper Canada, trading furs, spreading small pocks etc. Then later them carrying much need beer to kayakers. But times have changed there are better options.
Hell, if you were into biking and some guy showed up at the bike ride with a certain type of bike that has a design flaw. The kind of design flaw that causes the front wheel to fall off causing the guy to crash and spread his belongings all over the road a few times a trip. Wouldn't you question his sanity? When you questioned his sanity, if the answer was that it was more of a challenge to ride this weird bike with the messed up wheel. Wouldn't you know he was insane? But somehow we just accept these canoe heads as rational members of society who have jobs and a license to drive an automobile. We pick them up off the road but them back together talk about their grazed knuckles and continue.
So on this trip my mind was working overtime. No one can be that crazy I thought. There must be something in this swim thing. Maybe they got some weird erotic pleasure from all this swimming. Well, I couldn't help myself, I had to try it out for myself. Of course I couldn't just tip over in a class 3 riffle and swim. My fellow paddlers would be wise to that in an instant. We were already past the hole that ate Richard, we were by Brads beat down and nobody would swim Poplar for pleasure ( or so I thought).
Anyway so the only logical choice was Boulder Falls (Not sure if that's the name I checked on river wiki and that seems an apt description)
So while most of the group scouted, I chose the best way I knew to get my swim on. I followed Richard. According to Richard, I'm an idiot and missed the line completely. None of that matters because I got exactly what I wanted. Parallel parked in a hole/pourover at the bottom. At first I had forgotten my plan and tried to escape. I side surfed, then it flipped me. I waited it out and rolled but was back in the hole. The water pouring over the boulder confused be because it was upstream a couple of feet. This made me forget my swim plan again and when I flipped I tried the trick Richard told me about. I reached deep while upside down and tried to paddle out. My boat did not want to leave the hole. Then I remembered that I really wanted to swim anyway. So I jammed my knees into the skirt and tried to pop it. That didn't work so I pulled the skirt with one hand and held the paddle with the other. I then used my paddle to help pull me out of the boat and downstream. VICTORY!!!!!!!! I was swimming. My first gasp of air and there was Richard. Strangely he didn't have the same look of triumph that I was feeling. In fact, he looked downright disappointed. Anyway I didn't have time to ponder that, I was going to enjoy my swim. So I happily swam to the shore while Richard waited for my boat to flush. He then dragged it to shore and left it there with hardly a word to me. Then he paddled to the bottom of the sneak to watch Greg swim his line. I thought my swim was any bit as good as Greg's but Richard couldn't seem to care less. In fact he told me off further downstream. Evidently if you aren't completely out of air you shouldn't be allowed to swim. Since I had plenty of oxygen left, it was my duty to stay in my boat until I was too tired and oxygen starved to fight any longer. Obviously he doesn't know shit about swimming.
Also that sneaky jerk Rob tried to follow my line and get his swim on but lacking my experience he managed to paddle his way out of the hole.
In the end. I still don't get canoes. I swam a mile in their shoes but still do not understand them. My swim was ok but nothing to write a trip report about.
In fact just to prove my theory about how weird they are, Greg swam popular twice. Kind of greedy if you ask me.
At the take out we gave Greg his new nickname (Sideshow Greg), drank our booty beers (Evidently swims are like dog years for canoeists. They only need one beer for every seven swims) Harris drank the booty beer left owing from his Lovers swim on Saturday and we drove off leaving Harris, Mike and Rob to hope that Erwin could find the Travers lake road take out with his car.
Before we left, we stretch wrapped Sue Taffs car and stretched the beer boxes I owed Cale to here bumper.
This year at HOHW the GKC didn't place a raft team, KWP won by default even though 3 chunks of driftwood beat their time. So for the first time in history the KWP are drinking GKC beer without having to steal it.
HOHW Wrap up: GKC kicked serious butt in the downriver race. Our top 6 boaters posted blistering times. The times were so incredible that Cale decided to try to win that by default as well. He said that we needed one woman in the race. I guess he realized that Cortney and Alex weren't there, that Cathy was busy volunteering all day. So he figured he could get us on a technicality. Little did he know that Shaunna is a member of the GKC. She has her own personalized hoodie and was given free membership for a year because of the impressive physical prowess she displayed while beating James in a foot race during the KOC.
Also of note is that Richard posted the fasted short boat time 7:53. Beating Adam Chapel by a mere 2 seconds.
In the long boat race the fastest time was 6:53 cam smedley who is a slalom boater.
Joel Bernard was the fastest GKC member at 7:18 followed by Richard 7:21 Kyle 7:38 Kevin 8:02 Art 8:07 and Rob 8:09. Shaunna posted 8:34
In Comparison the Mighty Cale reader posted a time of 8:17 but he did pause during his run to talk about his feelings with his Wife Stephanie. That evidently cost him some time.
Other notables were Greg posting 12:22 and 22:13 in one of those boats that the wheels fall off.
There is some talk of a new timing system where rodeo moves remove time from your run. It's possible that Gregs time will improve as a result.
Sadly Wayne was a No show because he couldn't find the starting line.
Todd Ames of the KWP was a no show because he couldn't find his balls after a horrendous swim over lovers during a practice run.
A great big thank you to the Pettawawa River rats and a the town of Pettawawa for hosting this amazing event. Thank you for protecting the river and showcasing what a fabulous jewel this river is.
Thank you to Brad and Kim for allowing some of us to stay at your house even though you are far too busy to take on that extra burden. We all appreciated it.
Well, that's all I can think of right now. Feel free to add anything you can remember.
I should mention who the 7 were. I figured someone could have filled in a blank or two.
Erwin, Rob, Andrew, Mike, Kevin, Richard, and Art where outfitted in appropriate boats. Greg was in a canoe.
