[JPTolson]

TCT,
As we have done on this forum since 2011, now is a good time to look back on the 2016 paddling season and reflect on our personal high points and low points. I hope other club members will share some of their best and best-be-forgotten experiences during the past year. Below are mine in chronological order.

High Points

1. West Fork of Little Beaver Creek, Feb. 28

With temperatures forecast for the 60s and the West Fork running, Mike Danko hastily put together a side trip to this gem of a run. The creek was ice-free and the sky robin’s egg blue on the last day of February. Our small group of Mike, Jessica, Ron, and I enjoyed over 13 miles of fantastic weather and paddling from Steubenville Pike Road to Beaver Creek State Park.

2. Connoquenessing Creek, April 10

The scheduled club trip to Pine Creek for this weekend had been cancelled due to cold and snowy conditions in north central Pennsylvania. But a few of us who had planned to go still wanted to get out and paddle. Bruce and Dianne Ambrose decided to run a 10-mile stretch of the Connie between Zelienople and Wurtemburg, PA. This was new water for me, and virtually any new run rates as a high point! Especially fun was the last mile of class one and two rapids.

3. East Branch Reservoir, November 10

The club’s November trip, known as the frostbite run, was anything but chilly this year. Like run on the West Fork of Little Beaver Creek, the weather this day was spectacular. Ten of us enjoyed a magnificent autumn day of temperatures in the 50s with cloudless skies–an outlier for November weather in northeast Ohio.

Low Points

1. Missing more trips than I would have liked.

2. Losing a dry bag clip on the lower Mahoning Run (not a big deal).

3. Jim B’s flat tire following the East Branch Reservoir run. Sorry to see him have to deal with it.