What happened to the Raystown

welcome back

I thi nk I went to the first and second events… The first, I shared a rooming in a house with ScottB and that house got really friggin hot that night.Avery nice experience paddling a Rapidfire, my dream boat…

The WPA Solo Canoe event is by intention unstructured… Its pretty much a gab and play and swop event… Nothing much is written in stone… Some people do informal instruction or informal gabfests and its beyond me ( though it is wonderful) that some manufacturers bring boats to the mulling over the hull forever crowd… Sales don’t often happen on site though may happen later. It is still free with a small camping charge. Bring your RV if you want but beware no services at each site and the ground can be muddy…
The venue is about as far from Raystown Lake as you could get… That is in physical appearance. Coopers Lake is about 10 acres and exceptionally shallow…Needless to say no motorboats.
It is also more Ohio centric so attracting paddlers from New England just doesn’t happen.

These events come and go… Florida Canoe came and went and so did the canoe symposium in Texas and also La Lou near New Orleans. Maine Canoe Symposium has had a hard time attracting paddlers from west of VT though it is a fairly large event. I don’t think any of the events has had a detrimental effect on attendance at another.

It may be time for a new informal gathering to start up… Some of you middle agers are becoming old farts with stories to tell. Or we may start a memorial event for those gone… Such as may happen at the Ozark Rendezvous this year( which has a drop off in attendance too)

There were not only canoes present, but quite a few kayaks as well. I even brought a surf ski one year. Quite a few people tried paddling the surf ski, it was quite amusing I have a photo of David Yost paddling a kayak.

I could say that Raystown was a progression of meet-ups at Allegheny Reservoir(before there were meet-up groups NT,me ,tripplehex, Pyker, nightswimmer,then ScottB and Ness and Dave,McCrea came and still does I think… and the gatherings got a bit bigger…A few lives changed and some came and went. I think Conk came or maybe it was Coopers Lake when he came aboard. Mostly it get to paddle and camp, but it started out at campgrounds. McCrea once found a stainless steel tampon dispenser that he was quite enamerd with. Most don’t post here anymore and I’m out of the loop for about 6 years, but a number of us got together there and at Pymatuning Lake(border of Ohio/Pa multiple times. One time and it probably was the beginning of the end to that… a few boats were stolen off the beach from us…I don’t think any were recovered. The theives had a good eye as they took the higher end stuff… I forgot to mention “Doc” he had a carbon Magic stolen I have a whitegold Magic and it was there in the morning with my Valley Aquanaut.

I forgot to mention Topher, If you ever met him, you’d never forget him. You can find him at Copious Glass on the net

@Andy_Szymczak said:
There were not only canoes present, but quite a few kayaks as well. I even brought a surf ski one year. Quite a few people tried paddling the surf ski, it was quite amusing I have a photo of David Yost paddling a kayak.

Not surprising … DY does like the double blade! I have a mental photo of DY chasing a loose RapidFire through a campground in a gale at 2 am and another of him trotting down the trail RF over shoulder double blade in other hand.
He had the burnt orange boat.

Raystown was definitely an interesting event. Great for meeting people, seeing new boats and trying them on flat water, socializing, and learning. I doubt there will be another event like it in the canoeing world.

Unfortunately, I did not know about it until after I moved from Pennsylvania. I would have attended more often but it was a long drive from southwest Indiana. I think I first attended in 2007. At least, I recognize my campsite, truck, and boats in the slide show below from that year. I had dislocated a finger paddling whitewater on the Ocoee River about a week earlier and still had enough pain I had to medicate myself most nights to sleep.

I arrived early and found a nice site down on the water and set up shop. About an hour later, a couple of salty looking guys showed up hauling a trailer with a 22’, 8 person Clipper Mariner canoe on it with “Bloody Mary” stenciled on the side. They took the site right next to me and proceeded to erect an enormous MSR Pavilion tent, which I later learned was nicknamed “The Den of Iniquity”. For the remainder of the week, intoxicating fumes billowed from under the eaves of this tent well into the evenings, which did not always blend pleasingly with the pain medication I was taking. This was my first experience with Topher and his friend Hap.

This pair had little difficulty debauching Bill Swift, Jr. who accompanied them on many after midnight cruises on the Bloody Mary. Unfortunately, my campsite proved to be the most natural point of access to the lake shore from the Den of Iniquity. One evening, Bill Swift tripped over one of my tent guy lines and fell, partially collapsing my tent as I lay inside in a mixed, drug-induced stupor.

Here is a slide show from Hap and Topher from that event. Many of the above-mentioned malefactors and miscreants are pictured, some now sadly departed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=salqb1pU__E

Here is a nice report on the 2008 gathering the following year by Ness:

http://paddling.com/paddle/trips/raystown-lake-in-pennsylvania-weekend-trip-report/?lat=40.2936&lng=-78.1843&zoom=14

Andy has some nice photos from the 2008 gathering in this thread:

http://forums.paddling.com/discussion/comment/2958727/#Comment_2958727

If I remember correctly, the original idea came from mcwood4 (Mick). wesd (Wes) had purchased a Mad River Explorer so that he could go fishing with a buddy. It turned out that the buddy didn’t go very often and Wes was interested in picking up a solo canoe for when he went out by himself. Mick suggested that those of us with solo boats get together, with Wes choosing the venue. I think the reason given earlier in the thread was what I remember - good location, reasonable driving distance for most folks. It was always held on the same weekend in October, either the first or second one, I don’t remember which. The first year was a pretty small group, but they were all hard core paddlers. I don’t think there were more than ten of us, and I doubt I can remember all of them. Some of the folks were wesd, mcwood4, me, NT, windwalker, Topher, I don’t remember if Conk was at the first one, but he was there a lot of years. Pyker was usually there. I think he brought an SOF kayak to the first gathering. I don’t remember if Scottb was there the first year or not, but he was there for several of them, as was Dougd. I am sure I am forgetting a couple of people from the original gathering, but most of them made it for the first few years.

The gathering was always at the Senoia loop of the campground. It had great water access and was still open that time of the year when most of the other areas were closed. Early on there wasn’t much organization. Mostly someone would ask if we were doing Raystown, Wes would verify that the campground was open, and folks would just show up, usually starting Wednesday or Thursday.

The nature of the gathering changed quite a bit over the years. I think the last year supposedly drew about 70 people. The next year no one said, “Hey, are we doing Raystown this year?” and that was the end of it. There were many people that made contributions to the success of the event over the years.

The original event achieved its purpose. Wesd wound up buying a Swift Shearwater and a Bell Magic. Pyker wound up with a Bell Magic to go along with his kayaks. It was a real treat having a chance to try so many different boats, and people were always very generous in letting others try out their canoes and/or kayaks.

I don’t think the Western Pennsylvania Canoe Symposium or whatever it is called had much of an impact on Raystown. I know some folks attended both events, but they were held at different times of the year and seemed to me to have a different feel, although that is coming from someone who never attended the WP event.

Hmmm we is all getting old … Reminiscing the good times! I feel like my grandmother,
I never went to Raystown being 11 hours away during peak fall foliage here at home but did attend WP several times… Correct in that the vibe was different… Taking a 22 foot boat onto Coopers Lake at night ( all 10 acres ) of it was not a high priority… Non drinkers seemed to prevail. Or moderates: as there was sometimes the Slip Clinic nearby which some did during the day.Better attended sans fuzzy head.

I’m always thankful that I made the effort to go to Raystown as many time s as I did. Putting names to faces was a highlight, as well as meeting so many like minded people from so many backgrounds. The variety of boats was amazing as was the sheer number of them. Many brought more than 1 boat, and having builders bring truckloads of them was a bonus. Meeting some of the luminaries from the paddling world was also a thrill, and I fear a venue like this won’t be repeated soon. At the time P.net was a relatively small community of paddlers and we got to know each other as best we could over the internet. But again, putting those names to faces was the icing on the cake.

I think c2g is right. There were a bunch of people who got together at Alegheny Reservoir many times and did a river trip on the Alegheny River. Wes had his Shearwatwer( I copied his bungies on his thworts on all my stuff after that. But I think that happened at Lake Aurthur… All I know is that many of us got together at Alegehny Res. before Raystown happened. I remember that on our first get-togher, Pyker dove into the water in early May and the water had to be about 55 degrees…A few of us were like wtf…he had his skin framed kayak. I know that the first time I went to Raystown, I shared the house with ScottB and the 2nd time , ed,norb and me had a waterfront site. I recall going into that Airstream Bambie and marveling how well they did the restorsation
… I met DougD that time…and I vaugely remember the den of Iniquity as there were many

I had the good fortune to attend once. I was visiting my son in MD and we drove over. I had wanted to meet Ness since we had talked on here many times. I also remember meeting Andy.
We were only able to stay for a couple of hours, but it was worth the trip.

I remember reading about the Allegheny and Pymo gatherings that coronaboy mentioned. I made one Allegheny get-together but never managed to talk myself into going to Pymo. I remember hoping that the folks who had been going to those two spots would make time to come to Raystown as well. It was a real treat when they showed up.

McCrea played a good prank on me one night. It was after dark when I got back from a day-long paddle. I think I had a Magic at the time. I wandered over to where everyone was hanging out and McCrea told me I ought to sit down and talk to this other Dave that was there. He neglected to mention that it was Dave Yost. It took me a little bit to figure out who he was. I think the light finally came on when I mentioned that the Magic was one of my favorite boats and the other Dave responded that he had based the design on one of his race boat designs… I tried to pretend that I had known all along who I was talking to, but silently cursed Mike for setting me up to look like an idiot, although it probably wasn’t all that difficult.

I’m sure there are a million stories that could be told, all of them good. It was great to be able to get together with some folks who shared a love of paddling and I have always been happy to read the accounts of other events.

Hi, pblanc and everyone. I checked out this thread because sissy103 gave me a heads-up. Haven’t been on these boards in many years. I recall that Topher’s Den of Iniquity was nicknamed “The Sin Bin”. Great clouds of aromatic smoke would escape whenever the flaps were lifted. Boy, do I have lots of great stories about Raystown… now don’t get me started. Hopsing and I attended our first Raystown in 2006. The high attendance number in the upper 60’s was in 2008. I had an actual list of names of attendees at the time, but that is long gone, as is the website I created for NT. Strangely enough, Hopsing and I were just reminiscing about Raystown, and the fun we had. No, it certainly wasn’t the best place to pitch a tent (gravel pads were meant for RVs), it was always crowded, and the paddling wasn’t the most interesting. But, the people we met there made up for all that. For me and Hopsing, Raystown was about connecting with like-minded people, and anything to do with canoes. At that time, we were both beginning canoeists, so we soaked up any canoeing information like sponges. A lot has changed since then, but we both still enjoy canoeing and canoe camping. I think we can attribute a good part of our canoeing successes to the people we met and connected with through Raystown and the p.net community. We met many good people who helped us grow as canoeists, who shared their knowledge, answered our questions, and showed us new skills. That was invaluable to us. Not to mention that it was fun, fun, fun!

Hi Ness! You are another person from the p.net days that I miss. Good to hear from you.

ya know, gthere was a gathering going on before Raystown and I was just reminded of it this week as I was in W. Virginia… Anybody go to Summersville Lake? I think it happened for a couple years at least. I know N.T. did…

Are you talking about Gauley Fest? That is a huge whitewater gathering of open boaters, kayakers, C1 boaters, and rafters that has been going on for many years and is still alive and well. It is held in Summersville, always on the third weekend of September during the Fall drawdown of Summersville Lake.

No…NT had a couple trips to Summersville Lake before I really got to hang with him on a regular thing. I just spent 5 days at Stonewall Resort. As a flatlander in Cleveland, Ohio, the terrain of W. Virginia was incredible. I had some of the toughest mounton bike trails I’ve ever peddled…and who would think that an hour a day in a heated outdoor pool at the end of September could give one a hell of a sunburn on a bald head. If I’m not wrong, the Gaulyfest is somewhat more south …

Watching Topher and (Ed?) stacking 4 or 5 canoes criss cross on the lake was memorable as well.