Full Moon ride, September 29th 2012

The Friends of Madison County had a series of full moon rides this year from the London trailhead.  Link - 2012-FullMoonRide

I finally remembered to go!  That the ride was on a Saturday made things easier, and Jennifer went with me.  Toni Hartley went as well, and we were joined by Jeff Haven in London.

Everything came together for the ride - is was Saturday, the weather was clear, the moon was rising early, the weather chilly but tolerable.  

Mike Michael greeted us when we pulled in (a plug for Mike's business, The London Coffee Peddler) - london coffee peddler   

Mike is a COP and AYH member from a long time back.  The ride is a social event, just show up and go.  Mike will ride sweep each way to ensure everyone who started also finished.   The 20 mile ride (10 each way) takes a break at The Purple Money pizza and ice creak shop in South Charleston.   

The ride started promptly at 7pm, but I would guess the last person did not leave the parking lot until 7:20pm.  

The trail from London to SC is flat and straight, with just few stretches shaded by trees.  This is perfect for a night ride!  We started out just as the sun was setting, and had a beautiful sunset to guide us - the painted sky stayed with us for about 7 miles, then we finished the ride into South Charleston in full darkness.  The rising moon had cast my shadow ahead of me as I rode into the town.  

We spent about 45 minutes in The Purple Monkey, have a light dinner (except for Jeff, he had a deluxe calzone about the same size as his head!).

Jennifer and Keith at The Purple Monkey.  I was actually having a good time!

The ride back to London was - magical.  Jeff was just far enough ahead of me so that his red tailight just in view.  Tony and Jennifer were just far enough behind for their white light to be visible in my mirror.

I ghosted along in moonlight, quick and silent.  I am not poet enough to give the feeling justice, but that is one of the most enriching bike rides I have ever done.  

All too soon, I was back in London.  I glided back to my car, and began loading up. We were all grateful for the car heater on the ride back to Columbus.   

I hope to go on the last ride of the year on October 29th!.    

Kelley's Island by the Numbers

A 4 day, 3 night stay on Kelley's Island.

The Numbers.

31.00 per night for the campsite, 93.00
8.00 for the reservation fee (OH uses a system similar to Ticketmaster for reservations) - by the way, the system sucks, IMHO.  Not worth 8 cents, much less 8 dollars.

Getting there:
One ferry line is available.  According to local lore, the current owner of the ferry (in Marblehead) to Kelley's Island bought the other ferry from Catawba to Kelley's, and then closed it.  And then tripled the prices to Kelley's Island, and starting charging for parking for the pedestrians and bicyclists. 

I have no idea if this is true.

However, it costs!  Ferry Rates rates

The schedule for rates are very deceptive.  First of all, it is listed for one way travel. So, double everything.

For Keith, Jennifer, Daisey, my car, and a trailer full of bikes, camping gear, boats - all the funhog stuff, was 108.00 dollars.  

Yep, 108.00 dollars!

Car - round trip, 30.00.
13 foot trailer, round trip, 40.00
2 adults, round trip, 38.00 (wait, they aren't included IN the car?  Nope.)
Dog - free!

Here was the real kicker - had our bikes been on a bike rack on the car, NOT in the trailer, it would have cost another 16.00 dollars to transport the bikes.  

Say we decided to save some bucks, and take just the bikes and camping gear.  94.00 dollars is what I come up with. 

Parking - 40.00 (10.00 per day), maybe double that since the trailer and car would take up 2 spaces.  
2 Adults - 38.00
2 bikes - 16.00 
bike trailers - not sure, I bet they would charge something!

Back to numbers - 

101.00 dollars for 4 days, 3 nights of camping
108.00 dollars to get there by ferry
40.00 dollars for gas (my car got about 28 mpg towing the trailer with 2 boats on top).
13.00 at the only store on the island for dinner/breakfast supplies for our extra day.
70.00 for the visit to Cheesehaven after we left the island (mostly my stuff!)

Was it worth it?  No.

The state park is nice, and if you get one of the very limited shoreside campsites, it would be uber-nice.  Reserve those 6-9 months in advance! We were restricted to the Pets Only section of the campground, a nice but very ordinary state park campground that happen to be within walking distance of Lake Erie.  We were also right next to the Group Campground, which hosted a group of semi-obnoxious Boy Scouts from Akron.  Also, the Pets only restroom had no showers, you had to go to one of the other campground areas for a shower.  A petty complaint, but still...

Biking Kelley's Island is nice - we rode bikes around the entire place on Saturday - Jennifer towing Daisy in the Chariot.  The roads are good, traffic is very light, and you ride along the lake almost the entire time.  But, not worth what it cost to get there, given there is perhaps 15 miles of road to ride.  

It is not a dog friendly place.  No one had a problem, but the state park has some pretty firm rules about dogs, and don't mess with them.  None of the restaurants on the waterfront wanted to deal with a dog on their patio.  We ate all our meals in the campground.

By the way, do not visit the place in the summer season, unless you are an extreme extrovert. 

The only reason I can think of to come back is the Poker Paddle.  kayak_poker_paddle

The Poker Paddle took place while we were there - had I been feeling better, I may have participated.  I ran into several COP boaters while I was there, including Walt Taylor and Curt & Debbie Goetz.   The weather was very good this year, and the paddlers were allowed to circumnavigate the island.  Over 100 paddlers participated this year! 

Was there a 3rd choice?

Was There A 3rd Choice?

By Keith Finn

Jennifer (the keeper of my heart) is a leader of a Girl Scout

troop. The scout troop decided one day that caving sounded

like something they ought to try. I am an occasional caver,

so Jennifer asked if I could take the troop caving. Ay yi yi!

I managed to deflect my role to that of assistant cave guide,

since I was able to convince Jennifer that Dave Seslar would

be a much better choice to lead the expedition. Dave is a

much better choice for cave guide, but he chose a cave

where much of the system has the same cross-section as

my torso. We were going to Jarvie Rourke cave in Kentucky.

For reasons I never have been able to understand, I cannot

find my way around Jarvie Rourke with any reliability. I

don’t get lost in the classic sense; I just don’t know where

I am! I can always find my way back; I just can’t follow the

cave map to a goal.

At the cave entrance we split into 2 groups. I had 1 adult

and 4 GS; Dave had 2 adults and 4 GS. The scouts had to

choose the leader they wanted to cave with: Column A - Go

with Dave and get stuck but not lost (Dave is 6’2” and 140

lbs - he can fit through a 7.5” gap) Column B - Go with Keith

and get lost but not stuck (Keith is 5’10” and 330 lbs - he

MAKES his own gaps!) After some hemming and hawing, they

asked if there was a 3rd choice! Whadda bunch of babies!

Anyway, off we went with our victims, er...scouts. Dave’s

group took the high road, and I took the low road. We

tromped along a stream passage for a while, clambered

over some rimstone dams, straddle walked a crevice in the

floor, then settled down for some crawling. I had chosen a

destination on the map, and we had 200 feet or so of crawling

to reach it. It wasn’t bad, hands and knees in single file,

but after a while it seemed like we had crawled longer

than we should have. When we came to a wide spot, I would

have everone examine the map, agree that we seemed on

course (consensus is good when trying to explain things to

a search party). After two more consensus building sessions,

I decided that once again, I was lost. I think I was in

a passage named “Endless Crawl”, and it was aptly named. I

decided to backtrack, climb a level and look for Eagle Pit.

After backtracking, climbing and wandering around (in which

the scouts had a great time investigating diverse nooks

and crannies), I ran into Dave and his group. Much to my

chagrin, he told me I was nowhere near Eagle Pit - I was in

the Registration Room. But my group didn’t feel so bad

about being lost after the horror tales of where Dave made

his group go! Once I was oriented, we made a quick exit (I

can always find my way out) and waited for the others to

catch up. All in all, the scouts found it a worthwhile excursion.

They even let me take them caving again - as long as it

wasn’t back to Jarvie Rourke!

Too much Shrimp!

TOO MUCH SHRIMP!!!!  (the Great Shrimp Massacre of ’99)

Just being on a trip can alter your mind.  Being a trip leader can put your brain in an altered state, incapable of performing simple math. For Example; Dave Seslar & I have been running a flatwater paddling trip to the southeastern US for years, and these trips last 9 days(objective).  One of our favorite places to visit is Cumberland Island National Seashore, and to get to Cumberland Island, you have to go thru St Marys GA.  St Marys is one of my favorite places to visit, for one reason – shrimp.  St Marys is an active shrimp port, so you get FRESH shrimp.  You even get you choice of shrimp -–the classic Gulf Shrimp, or the local favorite Rock Shrimp.   There I was in March of 99, day 7 of 9, a bit addled, and charged with finding enough shrimp for 10 people.  It had been a good trip so far, we had paddled the Okefenokee for 3 days, snorkeled & paddled the freshwater springs of N Florida for 3 days, and now we had a real treat – an overnight on Cumberland Island.  A big shrimp boil sounded like just the thing to finish off the trip.  We had by consensus figured ½ pound of shrimp per person would be adequate (the fools!), so I was dispatched to find the shrimp.  I went to the dock for FRESH SHRIMP, and found a boat just pulling in.

After talking to the shrimp broker, I found out they had 2 pound bags of shrimp for 8.00 per bag.  (when the shrimp are caught, they are immediately beheaded and flash frozen in brine).  Now my either my brain or my desires betrayed me.  I purchased 5 bags of shrimp (10 pounds!!!!) for the paltry price of 40.00.  I packed my tasty arthropods in an icy cooler, and hurried to catch the ferry to the island.  When questioned by others, I said I had 5 one pound bags of shrimp.  My brain had betrayed me – it (the brain) fooled me into buying TOO MUCH SHRIMP!!!  (And lying about it). 

That evening, Greg Karoly and I were rinsing the shrimp before the boilage.  Greg seemed to think there was an awful lot of shrimp – it was then I realized I had actually bought TOO MUCH SHRIMP!!!

Despite Heroic efforts, we could not eat all that shrimp (even I was perhaps feeling that just maybe I had erred and gotten TOO MUCH SHRIMP!!!).  There is a happy ending.  We had saved the cold boiled shrimp, and while waiting for the ferry the next day – we found 2 backpackers who had missed the previous nights ferry and only had an apple left for the both of them.  They were more than happy to kill off the last of the shrimp.

My wettest TOSRV

My wettest TOSRV – by Keith Finn

TOSRV Sunday was really wet – I was up to my armpits in rushing water, holding on to a tree branch and trying not to get flushed downstream.  Thank God I wasn’t riding a bike that day.

HAHA!  You thought I managed to ride my bike into a creek, didn’t you.  And only an idiot could accomplish that!  Well, you are wrong. I was in Rocky Fork Creek on purpose!

We were holding a Kayaking class on Rocky Fork Creek (20 miles west of Chillicothe) the following weekend, so 3 idiots (dedicated service oriented volunteers) decided to clear out the fallen trees so as to spare our students the trauma of drowning while trapped under a tree.  Dave Seslar, Mike Stocarrdo and Keith Finn bravely set forth into a gusty torrential rain to drive down to the Rocky Fork.  We went thru Chillicothe and saw some early riders, and comments were of the ‘drowned rat’ and ‘utterly wretched wretches’ variety as we saw the TOSRV riders.  Prophetic words indeed!

Armed solely with clippers and a bow saw, armored in the peculiar attitude of (male) boaters (after all, it wasn’t like there was ICE in the creek), we put in at the Browning Road bridge.  The creek was ‘runnable’, but not high.  We spent a dreary 2 hours cutting smaller branches in knee-deep water, clipping thorny vines and otherwise tidying up the place.  All the while the rain poured down, pretty much without notice by our 3 heros. 

We got the gorge portion of Rocky Fork at about 1:00 pm.  Now we had an idea of just how much rain was falling.  Water was literally shooting out of the cracks of the high stone walls of the gorge.  The creek has risen over 2 feet in this area.  The kicker here is that the gorge is where we really needed to clear out some trees. 

Mike and Dave were not heavy enough to stand on the bottom and cut limbs – anything over knee deep water would flush them downstream.  Largeness is something I have plenty of, so I was often chest deep in the gorge, sawing branches while trying to attain hydrodynamic stability.  You can simulate this at home.  Turn the thermostat down to 50 degrees, and your tap water needs to be 45-50 degrees.  Now squat down in your toilet and let it flush on you for several hours, remembering to fall down every 20 minutes or so.  Oh yeah, while all this going on, saw on some moving object. 

  

Important safety tip! – I found a patch of quicksand in the gorge.  If you are going to fall into quicksand, have some good friends around to haul you out.  

We finally staggered (can boats stagger?) out of the gorge at around 5 pm.  This is a long time to be immersed in cold, moving water.  We were pruney, smelly, chilled, and exhausted.  By the time we ran shuttle, got changed (warm clothes!!!) and loaded boats, it was around 7 pm when we approched Columbus.  As we passed some of the last TOSRV stragglers, we thought ‘drowned rat’ and ‘poor wretches’. 

Doc says yer gonna die..

Doc says yer gonna die..

Like to paddle remote rivers?  On warm, sunny spring days? Do you like pristine cobblestone beaches?

If you do, watch where you sit. That is the moral of this story.

The Glady Fork of the Cheat is a fast, clean, easy whitewater run in northern WV.

It is remote, and rarely run. The price you pay for paddling the beautiful Glady Fork is trees. 

They fall across the river in the most inconvenient places, and you have to carry your boat around these trees.

Glady Fork ducky  Photo of Lynda Joyce and by John Duke taken 04/10/04 @ 8.0 @ gladwin

I had just portaged my canoe around a tree. I looked back to see if people were ready, and I saw them huddled in a circle looking down.

When I dropped my canoe, they were heading my way. Dave told me that Sharon had clipped a snake with her boat, then almost sat on the poor thing when she fell out of the boat.

The consensus was "some kind of water snake". Being a friend of the snakes, I went to look it over. 

I found it a few feet from shore. It had an indistinct brown body, but the girth was large given the length of the snake.

It also had a large triangular head and a patch of bright copper colored scales on the head.

Indisputably a Copperhead, one of the more common poisonous snakes in our area. 

When I mentioned this, thoughtful glances were exchanged. 

Sharon looked at me and asked "what would have happened if I had sat on it?".

Remembering the punch line from an old, tired joke, I looked her in the eye and replied "Doc says yer gonna die...".

Keith Finn