Driest Spring Ever???

New England has had a tough spring, this due to the fact that we had a very light snowpack this winter and warm temps in the end of March. The warm weather melted all of the snow before we knew it! With that said after all of the snowmelt was gone and the creeks were low, it seemed like it just wouldn't rain! This made the next couple weeks rough because normally at that time everything in New England is running 24/7 during the first couple weeks of April. Along with the low water, I have missed a lot of the days it has rained enough to bring things like the Middlebury Gorge or the New Haven ledges up to a runnable level due to school, prior commitments and most of all, not being old enough to drive yet! With these things in mind I have still gotten in some good boating over the past month.

Looping at "Hurricane"

I was able to catch one run on the Middlebury Gorge at the end of March just before I went home to Massachusetts on spring break with Justin Beckwith, Nick Gottlieb and Christian Woodward. It was a low level, but still a fun run. When I was home I paddled a decent amount on the class II-III section of the Deerfield, The Fife Brook section. Fife Brook is much different now after Hurricane Irene, most changes were for the best luckily. One major addition to the river was made, Hurricane Hole! Hurricane Hole is in the first rapid of the Fife Brook section, it is a wide hole and in the middle there is a great, retentive, deep, very fun spot at 900 cfs or greater. A typical release is 850, so sometimes you will hit the rock in there, but I am learning how to avoid doing that! The hole is great for loops, cartwheels and just about every other move you can think of at the right level. I spent a good amount of time there over break playing in my new Pyranha Jed! It is a great boat, very good for aerial moves, it is very slicy for cartwheels and it fits me perfectly. 

Cartwheel at "Hurricane"

Another place near my house that runs 365 days a year is known by the locals as "the Indian River." The dam that is a mile downstream from the Crabapple Whitewater base and has some great slides right below it. Its a cool place to go because you can put in when work is done, get a good flatwater workout on your way to the dam, walk around the dam, hike up the slides, have a blast and then paddle home! I was able to run these at higher water one afternoon. (see video)

First drop

The other day I was able to paddle with Christian Woodward, a great guy, that even came to pick me up so we could paddle! We routed over to the Middlebury Gorge, when we arrived our dreams were crushed, levels were low, Christian had paddled the day before at a great level and we were hoping it held overnight, but it didn't... We were there so we put on anyways. The section above and below the gorge was rocky, but the gorge as always, was still very fun! We debated doing another lap there, even with the low water, but decided we would head to Texas Falls. I had been there earlier in the year and almost ran it, but the water might have been a touch high. Texas Falls is a set of 3 drops in a very tight, walled in, undercut gorge. The first drop is a double drop, a 6 foot drop into a 4 foot boof, then you are in a calm pool above the last 2. The Second drop is a bit funky, a 7-8 foot drop, with a funky entrance, into a tight, very undercut walled hallway. At the end of the hallway is a perfect 10 foot boof. The perfect 10 has a teacup-pothole on either side of it, so you want to try and boof straight off of it. below the big 3 there are a couple other small drops, which were low at this level and another big drop that definitely needs a lot of water to run. Here are a couple pictures, one of me boofing the second tier of the first drop, and myself dropping into the hallway.

Dropping into the hallway

Christian setting up for the perfect 10

See the video for a little bit of footage!

Until Next time, 

Ryan Mooney

MOOOOOSE Fest!

Hey everyone!
Just got home from the fall Moosefest yesterday. Sadly I was only able to paddle all day on Saturday and not on Sunday but I still had a great time. It was my first time going to the festival! It was a ton of fun, great people there.

All day Friday and Saturday it rained hard brining the level up. A normal level on the Bottom section is about 3 feet. This weekend it was between 5-5.5 feet. This being created some stompy holes out there. Our group did very well. Everyone had good lines. I ran Fowlersville 3 times and Agers 3 times and Crystal 2 times. Fowlersville was awesome at the high water. If you can get good direction you can launch off a giant ski jump on the left sending you flying over the large hole. I hit it every run. Agers was a very fun rapid starting off by going over a small dam then dropping a perfect 18 foot waterfall with somewhat of a hole at the bottom, then after the waterfall if you make it into the river center left channel you go down a fun slide. I ended up running the right side of the slide 2 out of 3 times, there on the right side of it are 2 large holes. The first one is strong! Sureform was a crazy time because of the weather. It was 50 mile an hour winds when we were going through and also raining so hard you couldnt keep your eyes open. Luckily most people in the group punched the large curling wave at the top and made it left. Crystal  was the next big one. When we got there no one was running the middle line so I decided to fire it up. Starting out by punching a strong ledge hole on river right  then getting into the main channel I lined up for the middle drop and sent it! It went great! The elevator shaft had much too much water in it. My first run I ended up backwards at the end so I had to go and style it. The second time I was a touch farther left, lined up and cleaned it. Magilla is the last rapid. It is very intimidating looking on the left side. I watched a couple go took some pictures of 2 guys and then was cold. I decided to run the far right. It was a little slide over a dam into a maybe 10-15 foot drop.

All in all it was a great time. My thoughts are out to everyone who got hurt out there. There were a lot of injuries this weekend.

Here are some pictures of the drops video will be coming soon!

Dom Capozzi "going deep" at fowlersville

Gabe at the top of the slide

This is a tiny crowd....

dropping into the main part of crystal

Getting my bow up as much as possible

Coming out

Setting up for the middle line

Dropping in!

Going around the corner into the hallway

Dom Dropping into Crystal Middle line

Gabe on the right line

Mike Dropping into Magilla

Thats a lot of water...

Until next time,
Safe Lines,
Ryan

Kayaking Irene and Skiing Chile

My last month has been very busy. Half of my last month has been spent ski training in Chile with school (Green Mountain Valley) and the time before that was spent in the classroom, weight room and on the river.

Only times I have paddled in this last month were during and after hurricane Irene. The morning of the hurricane I paddled on Mill Brook about 10 minutes from campus. The rivers were high that morning and were rising very quickly. Everything was too big already so we decided to go run as much of mill as we could before it got too high. We got there and it was very high but still looked like it was good to go. After a quick scout in a couple places we put on and it was a great paddle. I paddled most of the lower section which I had never done and there was one very un expected double drop that was great! The normal drops in the section were watery. It was a great run. When we got off there was not much wood moving. After we ran shuttle (took 10 min) there were full size trees coming down the creek. Needless to say, perfect timing! The next week was spent helping the community clean up from the flood. So many houses and businesses were destroyed…

The next week we got a bit of rain and I got out on the New Haven ledges for 3 laps prior to class that morning. We put on at 7 did 3 laps with Dr. Ed Clark and made it back for 9:15 for a 9:25 class! The three laps were great. It wasn’t very high but still fun. There were some nice surprises on the river after Irene changed things and some things for the worse. But the always great Toaster falls (18 ft) was still that amazing auto boof and nice soft landing! Glad that didn’t change!

Now to skiing-

Chile was a great camp. The conditions were perfect throughout the camp. We didn’t receive 1cm of snow making the trails bulletproof for 2 weeks straight. We were able to accomplish a lot. I worked in the beginning a little on technique and then moved into gates quickly and progressed trying to be smother in my transition and building more pressure at the top of the turn. I got 5 days of GS training, 3 days of SG and 3 days of SL. The speed training was great on Sol 1. We progressed into a larger jump everyday. The last day the jump was pretty large. The GS training was amazing because of all of the different hills we got to train on throughout the camp. SL was good too. I was happy the way I skied the last couple days in SL. For being my first time in SL gates in a long time I was happy to be consistent. I just need to narrow my stance a bit, keep a consistent pole plant every turn and I will be doing well. The food was not the best down there but we survived. I must say tonight’s meal at Ruby Tuesdays in the Santiago airport was quite amazing. I am going to have to dig in back at school and pack away some food because we all lost a fair amount of weight getting barely any meat for the past 2 weeks.

I cant wait to get back out on the rive this week! Looks like there may be a little rain coming in so keep your fingers crossed! I am itching to get in my boat.

Lastly I am getting some new camera lenses this week so I am very excited! I will have them for the fall season! I am getting 2 Tokina lenses. One 28-80mm 2.8 f/stop and one 80-200mm 2.8 f/stop. I will get at least one of them hopefully both!

It is currently 3 o’clock in the morning on the airplane and I can’t sleep, so I have been writing a long blog post for the past hour!

Until next time, Safe Lines

Ryan

Same Old, Schools getting close

Hey everyone,
I have been doing much of the same back home due to such little rain. We got a good storm a couple of days ago but the ground is so dry none of the gauges bugged. I have been working and paddling at night when I can.


A couple days ago we went out paddling to our normal spot just a mile below our base. The water was at a little higher level than normal, but we have seen it at this level the last couple times. The normal line is normally down the river left side in this chute thing. But I saw a line down the river right side which is very manky and ends in a 10-15 foot drop. The only hard part was the initial put in because at the top of the run. There is an enormous boil where the water comes out of the dam. I had to have someone hold me while I got in and give me a huge push out to get across part of the boil. Once I got out on my line I knew I had to be just to the left of this fin rock and just to the left of some other fin rock. Then I went down hit my boof stroke and ended up getting another hit I wasnt ready for throwing me forward but everything worked out.


Here is my most recent edit of a lot of local paddling this past month. At the end is the line I was just talking about up above.


http://vimeo.com/27488430


So time is closing in and I have 10 days left of summer. I will paddle this weekend and a little bit next week then it is back to Vermont for school. Then I will be praying for rain!


Safe Lines,
Ryan

Back Home Hanging out

Hey all,
Im back home paddling locally right now as much as I can. Due to the lack of water I've been working on some new mountain bike trails, working to save up some money and paddling at some local play/creek spots that run with no water. These are a couple dams within 10 minutes of my house that are some good fun.

The first spot is a natural slide thing that requires minimum flow out of the dam. Its pretty cool becasue you can either just float right down it and be fine or you can charge it and do some cool wall rides. I dont have any pictures of a good wall ride but some are coming!

Horizon Line

Dropping in

Just getting started

Final Slide

Shooting Out

 The second is an old dam that I believe is no longer in use as of this year. Its a 20 foot rolling dam that has a 5 ft drop off the end so you can do some cool tricks off it. Blunts, pan ams and I think air screws are possible off it. I havent landed an airscrew off it yet but last night was my first time there so I think I will be able to get it down soon.

Blunt

Money Shot

Double Brown

Landing

Money Shot

Double Brown

Setting Up

No Paddle Blunt

 Paddlers Ryan Mooney and Dominic Capozzi. Photo Credit to: Ryan Mooney, Dominic Capozzi and Spike Carter

Good Lines,
Ryan

Kayaking tomorrow

Looks like the Middlebury Gorge is running right now and I will be going there tomorrow. Im hoping to meet up with Scott, Dom and Tim for Scotts last day before he goes to CO. Hopefully Justin and I can meet up with them! Today I played hockey for a couple hours in the morning and had a great time.

Until Tomorrow

Ryan