So this year's Moosefest included inordinate amounts of carnage, and even claimed a life. It's always tragic to lose someone on the river, and my thoughts and good wishes go out to his friends and family.

It seemed that there were many poor choices made this weekend, and although I certainly don't accuse anyone of making these choices, I think a few things should be noted.

Always have an idea of what the water level is, and what the consequences of this are. Just because you're at a festival and a lot of people are around, doesn't mean someone is setting safety for you, trust me on this one. Don't be afraid to walk a rapid, or walk off a river. In the end, you are the only one who can make the decision to paddle or portage, but the consequences of bad judgement usually impacts everyone else on the river and beyond.

But enough of me preaching, the Moose at 5.2 feet makes the Moose at 2.5 look like Bambi. I made sure to hit the put-in ramp so that I could get the second Moosefest Commandment (check out the 6th post). Because that was super important this weekend...right...

Fowlersville was sporting it's typical "If you come near me, I will eat you, your soul, and your sister's cat" hole in the middle. Except it was way worse. Fortunately, the fun flake boof on the far (far, far) river left side was in and offered up some serious airtime for those that hit it. Even more fortunately, the plug line was fairly forgiving for those that missed the boof. I didn't turn my camera on for this one, so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you I did a fully arial backloop off the flake and landed upright. That big.

The rest of the top half was surprisingly manageable, and even rather low stress. I bumped into Danny Doran, the phenom director and kayaker behind Empire: The Whitewater Story. He was in the group that first led me down the Bottom Moose, so it was good to be paddling side by side rather than following him timidly down the river.

Members in my group ran both the T-bone slide and the Dam Slide that are both normally portages. At Agers, we all hopped out to take a look at the gnarly boils at the base. I opted for the regular boof line, despite the beefy hole, nailed my boof, and was so stoked I had to run up and do it again. And that was my mistake. Taylor Krammen had already proven that lapping things this weekend would be a bad decision (more on this later), by nearly running Fowlersville backwards.

Once again, I nailed my boof. Except this time I turned into the curtain, got stomped for a bit, and then rolled up to find that my skirt had blown. (Sound familiar?) This time, I paddled to an island of rock, stepped out in ankle deep water, and promptly lost my boat. Oh yeah, and the GoPro I was borrowing from the Lewis County Trail Coordinator? That decided to go free diving at the base of Agers. Bye-bye  GoPro, hope you enjoy your Fall.

So after making sure someone would rescue my paddle (which sinks, by the way), I hit record on my helmet cam and performed an aquatic boat retrieval. All the summer time swimming and cliff jumping at Agers paid off, I made it through the whole thing without taking a single hit.

The group opted out of running the rest of the river, and we hitchiked back to our cars for shuttle. All except Crazy Ben (known in Mexico as Benito Loco, and in Lowville as "that-girl-who-got-stuck-under-water"), who grabbed the Bull-Moose by the antlers and soloed down to the takeout. Here he discovered us staring at Mike Mainer's right rear wheel, which had shorn off 3 of 5 of its bolts. Thank god for AAA...

After a hearty meal supplied by my loving parents, we all crashed as the rain continued to fall outside. In the morning, I got a visual on Brokeback Gorge which looked fluid. This also means that it was waaaay too high. Options included:
A. Waiting and hoping it would drop down to a survivable level
B. Dying
or C. Finding somewhere else to paddle.

After much effort, Taylor and I dissuaded the group from choosing option B. Dying. We looked at the takeout for the regular Roaring Brook run, and were happy to find it at a low boatable level. We rallied to the top for the group's collective personal first descent. Although I had hiked this a number of times before, I was still a little unsure about where everything was, so we proceeded cautiously. After an awesome expedition style portage including ropes, loose soil, and lots of swearing, we put in above a ~20 foot slide cascade thing. There was a tempting boof on the right that we all avoided. Except when Danny Siger decided to take a second lap (remember what I said about these?) and perform an anti-boof to skirt implosion combo that was very impressive.

A few easy ledges and class II riffles led to a a ledge with some scary geology, followed by a steep, fast staircase. It goes like this 2 ft, 3 ft, 10 ft, slide, hole, 8 ft into a crack, 3 ft...or something like that. It's steep, it's shallow, it's fast, and it's fun. And that's all that matters.

Just around the bend is another steep staircase that features less ledges and more slides. At the bottom there's a 4-5 ft ledge that landed in approximately an inch of water. That was fun...

Some easy water led to the takeout, where we rallied a sleeping Catherine Hull to get her kayaking gear and take a Duo run down Otter Creek. With the Independence gauge reading at just under 700 cfs, the Otter was at a fun but scratchy level. The UVM Kayak club trusted me and my beta and did a remarkably good job of moving quickly. We bounced down the put in slides, while Danny practiced his playboating skills in a sticky ledge-hole, and proceeded to the Eagles Talons slide without incident. There, I broke the second lap curse by joining Crazy Ben in the Duo and not getting wrecked. The only caveat was that I had to be in back. I weighed more and had the helmet cam so it only made sense...plus that way if we pitoned into the wall, I wouldn't have to deal with it (as much). Oh yeah, that was my first time in the Duo. Sweet.

With verbal beta, I got the group through the final rapids, and we were at the takeout an hour from when we put in. Well done crew! After loading up, Mainer headed out while we tied down the last boat.

Now where did Danny put his keys?
10 minutes later: No really, where are the keys.
Another 10 minutes: "Seriously, do you guys see my keys?"
another 10 minutes, and on the phone with Mainer: "Ok, I know this is ridiculous, but did any of you happen to see my keys? ...REALLY? Are you freaking serious?"
15 minutes later: "So how long does it take to get here from Lowville? Oh, there they are..."

Ben and Catherine pulled up, keys in hand. Yeah, thats how Moosefest ended.

I'll add photos as soon as I can get 'em, but for now you'll have to suffer through this terrible video...