Deerfield River Festival

Battling for third through Dragon’s Tooth Rapid. Photo: Shannon Mercurio

The Deerfield River Festival is always a highlight of my summer paddling season.  One of my first whitewater paddling experiences occurred on the Deerfield River back in 1995, and it is always a special place for me to return to.  The annual gathering of paddlers in Charlemont, Mass. each summer is a significant fundraiser for American Whitewater, which Pyranha supported this year with a donation of a kayak as the prize for the “Rock, Paper, Scissor, Showdown.”  Yes that’s right, someone walked away with a brand new Burn  for winning a rock, paper, scissor contest.  The Deerfield River Fesitval weekend is also host to the most hotly contested “Lozer Cup” races of the season.  The results of which go towards U.S. National Wildwater rankings.

Chattin it up at Deerfield River Fest. Photo: Joe Scavo

New Northeastern Sales rep. for Pyranha, Joe Scavo and I were on hand to get folks excited about the Nano and Loki as well as all of the other boats in the line.  It was great to reconnect with people I only get to see once a year, and introduce them to Joe.  After listening to some great tunes from local musician Jeff Campbell and watching the “raft guide olympics” we called it a night and I started to think about Sunday’s “Lozer Cup” Race.

I won the super fun, 18-minute race last year but was not so lucky this year.  After getting my Speeder out to a really good start in the mass start, upstream format, I was almost immediately pushed into some rocks, flipped, and lost a lot of ground.  The rest of the race I did a lot of catching up, and had a lot of fun battling for third.  Myself and two other paddlers each occupied the third place at some point through one of the final rapids.  In the end, I didn’t have a lot left for the sprint to the line and settled for 5th.

I’m looking forward to improving my result at the Black River Festival this coming weekend.  I’m super exciting for one of the best parties in paddlesports, the floateo, and the great race down the long Black River Race Course.  Se you there…