Shenango Paddle Fest

Hi, everyone –

My friend Lee and I enjoyed a wonderful and very eventful paddle at this Paddle Fest on Saturday, a major fund-raiser for the Shenango River Watchers as most of you know.

Unfortunately, I’m sure the torrential rains kept many faithful paddlers away, but we waited patiently until the rains subsided before we off-loaded, completed our shuttle and launched . . . at 9:30 am. Yours truly was interviewed at the Sign-In (we had registered on-line to save 5 bucks) by a Record-Argus newspaper staff writer, so I left him with a few great quotes that will hopefully make it to print. The rains had passed and the sun soon appeared. Because of the rains, the water was flowing swiftly - no need to let water out from the dam as they did for their spring event. Instead of a 3-hour trip, it took us 2 hours to travel the 9 miles to Greenville’s Riverside Park . . . and it was “heads up” the whole way watching not for rocks but for strainers and submerged logs . . . it was tricky paddling, but very exciting. We saw no other paddlers during the entire trip, but spied several herons and chased a myriad of squawking kingfishers downstream. GOOD NEWS: Upon our arrival at the Park, we exited at a brand spakin’- new launch/take-out site, just below the footbridge that crosses the river very near the outfitter’s octagonal building. It’s marvelously groomed with several large steps (several covered with water) which made it extremely easy to exit. (I discovered it was put in place at the end of September, but unfortunately the SWBs didn’t spy it when we launched from the Park on our trip to Kidd’s Mills Bridge on Wednesday; oh well . . . next time, Roger.) Interestingly enough, while we were enjoying our lunch and the live music, we heard that the event had been shut down with no more paddlers permitted to launch (at about 10:30 or 11:00) because of the high waters that just kept getting higher during the morning, likely from the many feeder streams along the way. Lee and I were told that there were about 100 pre-registered paddlers, but many of them had stayed away because of the early-morning rains. It was a great adventure for Lee and I – not so much for others that were turned away.

I hope you enjoyed this account.

I always look forward hearing your paddling tales.

Alice D