Team River Left: Moose River Festival 08

This was my fourth year heading to the Daks to partake in one of the best river releases on the East Coast. Waters from America’s oldest forever wild park, the Adirondacks trickles into the Moose River from the North, Middle, and South Branches all converging near the town of Old Forge. Moose Fest also marks the draw-down of the Fulton Chain of Lakes a twenty mile long inpoundment of a series of lakes. This guarantees reliable flows for Moose Fest. Three sections of whitewater on the Moose are popular with boaters, the Middle Moose class 2-3(4), the Lower Moose class (3-4), and the Bottom Moose class 4-5. The Moose River end in style by falling off several waterfalls and joining the Black River which immediately falls another 70 feet off Lyons Falls.

This Moose Fest was as good as it gets. The weather was beautiful with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-50s (it usually snows). The level was hovering around 3.4 which is a great level opening up the fun lines like the boof at Knifes Edge, and the Alpine Line at Crystal, but it wasn’t to much to make drops like Fowlersville Falls sketchy. The Bottom section begins with a bang by falling off Fowlersville Falls, a 50 foot slide. Nearly all paddlers stay far left to avoid a terminal hydraulic in the center. Kevin ran a line starting right and ferrying to the left just above the slide leading into the terminal hydraulic. This is the kind of move that makes Big Splat and the Upper B look like runs for pansies. The Moose displays the classic big pool – big drop character of the Adirondacks. The next drop is diamond splitter which requires you to punch a strong diagonal hole and go down a 10 foot slide. What happens to most people is that the stall out in the hole with feeds them into a sloppy rail grind move over the diamond splitter rock. The next drop is Knifes Edge where the river narrows into a tight corridor with smooth sloping rock walls rising 40 feet above the river. This drop has it all, a sneak left, a terminal pothole in the center and two right line options. At the level we had it was perfect to run the boof line. The boof line is 3 foot wide line that narrows to about 2 feet wide at its end, meanwhile you are riding a knife edge where falling off prematurely will equal a major pin or piton. The trick is to drive hard along the edge and catch a small piece of flake at the end of the boof then you fall off to the left and drop about 9’ into some nicely aerated water.

Art boofing off Knifes Edge, photo by Pamina

The next drop is Double drop pure fun easy class 4. Below here the Moose gets very interesting. Agers Falls is next, a 20 foot vertical with a 20 foot slide below it. The lip of Agers is very wide making it a great place to do a tandem huck off the falls. Wayne and I fired it up together, unfortunately for him he penciled in, swam, and got a brutal beating riding the junky slide to the bottom. I had a good laugh, after I knew he was ok of course. The next rapid is named Shurform, a long twisting slide dropping about 30 feet overall. For those of you non-woodworkers a shurform is a cheese grader like tool used to hog off large amounts of wood, needless to say this is not the place to be upside down.

Art and McLovin at Shurform, photo by Jeff Ackerman

The next drop is Powerline, here the river constricts and creates a big wave train with some powerful holes thrown in the mix. On Saturdays run I found a pourover hole I had forgotten about, and I pull one of the most impressive enders of my paddling career. Its not often my 230 lbs body and my entire 80 gallon boat get launched into the air.

After powerline is Crystal Falls, the highlight rapid of the run. This is a three stage waterfall with plenty of lines to choose from. The nice thing about this drop is that it is relatively friendly for how bad it looks from the scout. Everyone in our crew ran the Alpine line, this route drops 30 feet in a very three quick successive drops. The last drop of the three is very tough to keep your head above water at the bottom.

Art running Crystal, photo by Jeff Ackerman

The final drop of the run has the hardest line on the river. There is a left channel and a center channel, the center is easy class 4+ waterfall where the left is a extremely challenging drop with a tough boof and a shallow landing zone. It’s a good place to mash an elbow. Kevin once again fired it up but this time he ran off the main flow right into the heart of Magilla. It was quite the weekend.