[JPTolson]

TCT,

It’s that time of year again. Time to review the high points and low points of the paddling year. I hope a number of club members will join in and share their best and best-be-forgotten paddling experiences. Mine are below in chronological order.

High Points in Chronological Order

1. Middle Fork of Little Beaver Creek, Elkton to Echo Dell Road

I had not been on this section of Beaver Creek in probably 50 years. So it was like a new run. The level of back and forth dithering the night before the trip over whether there would be enough water or whether to move the trip to the Mahoning/Beaver rivers was a little nerve wracking. Thanks to help from Stan Shiderly and Dave Manevich, we made the right call and a small group of TCT paddlers enjoyed a beautiful run with just barely enough water. The upper section of the run is especially pretty, remote and intimate. There are enough class 1 and 1+ rapids throughout the trip to make things interesting and fun. The rapids near Route 7 are especially neat.


2. Guilford Lake

Though it was not a club trip, this run on a beautiful August Sunday afternoon was the first time out in my boat since late May when my canoe transport vehicle suffered a permanent breakdown. This outing was a test of loading and unloading the boat by myself on a new and taller vehicle with a new rack. So with my friend Joyce Norris, who helped me assemble and install the rack, standing by and ready to call 911 if the canoe landed on top me, I managed to successfully get the boat on and off my vehicle at home and Guilford Lake. In between Joyce and I enjoyed a beautiful three mile traverse of the lake and back.


3. Presque Isle Bay and Lagoons

This paddle made the high points because it was a personal first, a beautiful run, and much different from most club trips. It features the open waters of Presque Isle Bay with the city of Erie in the distance, an interesting small embayment with about 20 floating seasonal dwellings, Perry’s Monument at the tip of the Presque Isle Peninsula, and channels through expansive wetlands between the bay and Lake Erie. The trip was on a beautiful summer day, and a number of paddlers capped off the trip with a swim in Lake Erie at one of the many beaches in Presque Isle State Park. Paddlers who have not done this trip should consider adding it to their paddling bucket list.


4. Pymatuning Creek

Though the date for this trip makes it the club’s frostbite run, the weather was anything but frosty. This trip makes the high points because it was a gorgeous day on a beautiful creek with not a cloud in the sky, air temperature at 50 degrees, and no wind, quite unusual for northeast Ohio in mid-November. The weather was nice enough to attract 10 paddlers for the trip. The virtually current-less pool of water created by the dam below the put in at Andy Dorick Park in Orangeville makes this ideal for an up and back trip (no shuttle required). We paddled upriver 2.5 miles, farther than I recall on previous Pymatuning Creek trips when trees across the creek made it impassable. The trip scores bonus points for the church bells ringing at noon as paddlers gathered at the put in!


5. Chilly Chili Run on the Mahoning River and Eagle Creek

Soon after arriving for the Chilly Chili Run, I met Minnie Wolf, a spry, polar plunging, nonagenarian who greeted me with a friendly fist bump. We first met at Riverfest 2022 where I had given her a canoe ride. And now she wanted to go for another ride with the air temperature about 40 degrees lower! I was happy to oblige and offered Minnie the bow seat of the canoe for the three-mile up and back trip between Canoe City and Eagle Creek. It was such a privilege to have Minnie back in the boat. And she was so appreciative that she gave me a beautiful Christmas ornament.


Low Points in Chronological Order

1. Cuyahoga River

On Memorial Day I drove to Akron to scout the put in, take out, and shuttle route for the club’s Cuyahoga River trip from Cascade Park to Bolanz Road scheduled for late June. Less than 100 yards from the put in on Cuyahoga Street, my car suddenly began making horrible metal-on-metal clanging and grinding sounds. After a $300 tow back home, I learned the next day that the top of the right rear wheel well had rusted through and was now encircling the shock absorber causing the grinding noise when going over the slightest bump. There was no way I would attempt to get such a serious problem fixed on a 19 year-old vehicle. And the chance of getting a new vehicle and rack in time to scout the run and lead the trip was slim. So I was forced to postpone and ultimately cancel the trip.


2. Mahoning Riverfest

About midway through the afternoon of canoe rides for the public, the chatter on one of the club’s marine radios said that cars parked in the old Mr. Anthony’s parking lot were being towed! That was where I had parked the car that I drove to Riverfest! I learned of the towing at the point on the river farthest from the dock at B&O Station. Immediately turning the boat around, I apologized to my guest rider and went into sprint mode to get back to the dock and reach the parking lot as quickly as possible. Fortunately, my car had not been towed and Stuart Smith, a member of Friends of the Mahoning, was there to intervene with any tow truck driver before those parked in the lot could move their vehicles elsewhere.


3. Midwest Canoe Symposium at Camp Butler, Peninsula, Ohio

One of my knees had been giving me some arthritic pain for several weeks prior to the symposium in early September. But I wasn’t going to let it stop me from participating in this annual gathering of freestyle canoeists. So for three hours during a class in the morning of the first day I knelt in my canoe while the pain grew worse. Still undeterred when it came time for the three-hour afternoon class, I soldiered on. Only now it was a struggle to move about in the boat due to the painful knee. So at one frustrating moment when I could not move the knee as necessary, I yanked it to one side of the boat where it “needed” to be. The sudden movement also caused my head and shoulders to cross the gunwale plane and I quickly found myself floating in Lake Litchfield staring at my upside down canoe! It had been awhile, but I had helped to lend credence to the paddling aphorism ‘we are all in between swims.’ LOL!