Thursday, October 30, 2008

What's On Tap for the Weekend - Tohickon!

It's become an annual trip for Rick and I -- the Tohickon Creek Dam Release every November to watch the crazy kayakers jump over rocks (yes, they do that!), spin, surf and flip over in rapids. They do it in the Spring too, but the November trip has been on our calendars for 3 years now. It's in Ralph Stover State Park, near the Delaware River just below Allentown, PA. Here's a press release on the event - its quite the happening East Coast ordeal in the whitewater world each fall. The past couple years we went to watch, take pictures, and video our friends that have been doing for a while. Rick nor I ever felt we had the skills to do this Class 3 creek -- until this year. Rick's doing it! I'm SO proud of him and know he'll be just fine. He's been studying that video he shot last year and feels like he knows the river and what to expect. He's been rolling, rolling, and rolling and never missing all summer. That's the trick to any whitewater river -- if you get in bigger water, you better your chances of flipping and you need that roll to "save" yourself. Or in my case, you just pop out the boat and "swim" and end up losing your paddle and floating down a rapid, bumping your knees, arms, and whatever else along the way on rocks and ending up with black and blue marks all over your bod. NOT cool - and certainly not the skill for a trip like this (thus, why I'm not going!). But Rick's ready. He's hooked up his buds for the weekend - Tony Labato, probably Tim Garland, and group from the Harrisburg Canoe Club (Lee Thonus et al) and Donna Mummert is going in a duckie (an inflatable kayak). And me? Well I'll be enjoying watching them all from the comfort of my bicycle seat on the dry, WARM shore line. There's bunches of press releases on it -- here's DCNRs also. And here's Rick's Pix from past years.

1 comment:

The Wiser Weiser said...

HAVE FUN!!!! and Rickie, be carefull!!!