Halloween Tune-Down Trip

Howdy folks,

  Last weekend, Friday Oct. 28 to Sunday Oct. 30, 2011, twelve people planned to participate in the annual Halloween Tune-down trip to the Ohiopyle PA area.  Friday afternoon, the following weather report was brought to the attention on the trip participants:

WINTER STORM WARNING FOR OHIOPYLE, PA AND SURROUNDING AREAS:
in effect until Saturday, Oct 29, 8:00 PM

* HAZARD TYPES...HEAVY WET SNOW.

* ACCUMULATIONS...5 TO 9 INCHES OF SNOW, WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ACROSS THE HIGHEST RIDGES.

* TEMPERATURES...IN THE UPPER 20S SATURDAY MORNING, WARMING TO THE LOWER 30S BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

In keeping with the Halloween theme, the report scared three paddlers away.  The group became nine.  Four of the group (Lee Green, Andrew Wise, Alex Janke, Joe Marincel) were waffling about hoteling or camping.  After seeing the report, the four decided to TENT camp at Ohiopyle!  Lee Green called themselves a “A small but deeply disturbed contingent”.  The rest of the group, Karen Frank, Paul Lange, Linda and Casey Seley and Jeanne Langan stayed at the Melody Motor Lodge in Connellsville, PA.

Friday Oct. 28: Linda, Casey and Karen met Andrew at Rose Point campground to paddle the Slippery Rock creek to Eckert bridge.  The level was 1.25 on the mill gauge.  The water was cold but not evil (two rolls before the ice cream headache).  The weather was a balmy 45 degrees and cloudy.  We all kept warm catching eddies, surfing and doing attainments.  Linda decided to go for an extended surf at Airport rapid.  Linda entered the left side of the hole and started performing a multitude of tricks. First the window shades downstream, roll up, window shades upstream, roll up, spin left, spin right, flip, roll up, cartwheel a few times, roll up.  Getting tired, Linda considered taking a swim and becoming the next honored member of the Airport Swim team.  Considering that her husband, Casey may feel left out and may feel a bit jealous if she joined the highly honorable club with- out him, Linda decided to go for a few more rounds of tricks and catch a front surf in the hole.  During her surf, she decided passing up the chance at such exclusive membership would be foolish.  She then proceeded to exit the hole upside down and join the famous and exclusive Airport Swim Team.  Congratulations to Linda!

After taking out at Eckert bridge, Linda, Casey, Karen and Andrew drove to Connellsville to meet Jeanne (traveling from Buffalo) and Paul (traveling from MI after a seminar) for dinner at Italian Oven. 

Saturday Oct. 29:  We awoke in Connellsville to 2 to 3 inches of snow.  At breakfast at Ed’s Diner behind the hotel, the campers (Lee, Joe, Alex and Andrew) assured us there was much more snow over the ridge in the campground, up to 12 inches!  Since the conditions were perfect for people to try a new river (only Karen and Paul had been on the Little Sandy once before), we decided to paddle the Little Sandy in WV from the church into the Upper Big Sandy river, taking out at Rockville (the Lower Big Sandy put-in).  The level was 6.6 (Big Sandy at Rockville). We put on the river at noon and were off at 4:00.  The three miles on the Little Sandy start out flat for a short time, then the river becomes “ledge-drop” and then continuous, creeky and busy until it spills into the Big Sandy.  The two miles on the Big Sandy has surf wave after surf wave until a it spills over a very large Class IV ledge called “Faulkenstein Ledge”.  After the ledge, it returns to steeper, boulder strewn creeking with lots of eddies until the take-out.  The take-out serves up one to two great surf waves.  The snow covering the river banks made for a peaceful and pretty paddle until the action started.  Everyone had smiles on their faces and enjoyed zipping from eddy to eddy.  The river only ate one person and one boat.  Joe discovered a 10 inch crack in the hull of his Jackson half way down the Little Sandy.  Lee “patched it” with Gorilla tape.  There was no specific incident to attribute to the crack.  Perhaps the cold weather?  Cheap plastic?  Previous abuse?   Later, on the Big Sandy, a different person got caught by a rock, could not work off and had to take a swim.  The person, boat and paddle were collected without incident. 

Sunday Oct. 30:  The snow had mostly melted, the air warmed to 47 degrees and the sun was out!  Due to Joe’s cracked boat, Alex was going to loan Joe,  Lee’s boat (the CR that Alex paddled Saturday) and sit out paddling to study.  Jeanne, who had to head home early to Buffalo, was kind hearted enough to loan Alex her RPM and her paddling clothes.  Alex jumped at the chance to wear Jeanne’s clothes and paddle her RPM.  The remaining eight of us put on the Lower Yough around 10:30.  The level was 5.1 (~3880 cfs).  The water was BIG.  The waves were BIG.  The holes BIGGER. We had BIG fun!  The river was a bit hungry, eating one person at Bottle of Wine in the big hole in the center that is usually a rock and another person at River’s End in the pit that forms behind the giant pillow off Billboard rock.  We were off the river at 2:30 and on the road home by 3:00.

All in all a great, fun day and great, fun weekend.  Everyone handled the snow, water levels and rivers well.

Hope to get out one more time, weather permitting!

Karen and Paul