This was the first year that I had heard about a little festival know as Salmon Fest. in New York. The festival has been going on for years and is based at Stoney's campground. You can find the Salmon River and Stoney's about half way between Syracuse and Watertown along Interstate 81. The Salmon River is a class II stretch of whitewater that is dam controlled. It is only a few miles long, but had a lot of small play features all along the run. The highlight of the run in the hole know as Titanic, a shallow ledge hole with eddy service on both sides of the river.
Saturday I hung out at the put-in of the Salmon until every one of my Flirt demos was out on the water. I even had to demo out my personal boat, which left me to use my C-1 Medium Flirt. I haven't C-1 in over 8 months, but had tons of fun on this mellow stretch of river. I'd like to thank Scott from Northern Outfitters for his great hospitality on his local run. I'd also like to thank Whitewater Challengers for the shuttle service. After my run down the Salmon I collected all my demos and sent a few more demos down the Salmon. I then headed up to Watertown to paddle and demo boats at Holebrothers. Even though there were only a few people at the spot I had a few more demos out on the water and got some quality rodeo boating in for myself. Saturday night at Stoney's was the festival with a live band and a bonfire. I was one of only a handful of vendors, but had quite a crowd for a few hours checking out all the Fluid boats. The festival was really low key and fizzled out early.
On Sunday I headed up to Holebrothers early and met a bunch of people that were interested in demoing the Flirts. After about four hours of paddling and demoing boats I loaded up the Go Big Rig and headed back to Baltimore.
Hopefully the Salmon River Festival will get a little more advertising next year and people will come out and support this fun local event. This is really the grass-roots part of the sport that has a huge potential for growth. Hopefully the Salmon River Festival will happen again next year and I will see some more smiling faces at the event.
See you on the river- Bryon Dorr
