Camp Insanity before Camp Insanity

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While watching the news a few days before we left to camp a man tubing on the Sacandaga River with his family lost his tube and his life. The news said he was not wearing a life jacket. They also mentioned how dangerous the river was because of heavy rain that week. When we arrived, we were warned about the raging river by the rangers. When we got to our campsite and looked down at the water it was obvious it was dangerous and the ranger said the day the man died it was two to three feet deeper than now. We have been camping there all our lives and have no memory of anyone losing their life in the river. There were years it was scary enough we didn't let our kids tube the river, but it was always calm enough that they could play in the water without worrying about them dying. It normally is a shallow rocky river... But not this year. When the ranger mentioned no life jacket my sister and I shared a moment....Our children NEVER had life jackets on and neither did we. We together tubed so many times I can't even imagine how many – hundreds. During our two weeks by the river this year we saw a very few tubing down the river, those that we did see with smaller children all wore life jackets. The older teens who tubed by our site were not, but they were warned and probably paid attention. It was a first for us. The current wanted to take us down the river when we first stepped in to wash off the sweat of setting up. We were very careful to stay near the shore and found big rocks to hang on to. We only got into the water a half dozen times. We waited for a few days for the water to calm down and it did...until it started raining again. The photo show's some teens tubing by (very fast) this summer, our older kids on tubes, our younger kids on tubes, some of our art in the water after the water slowed down this summer. We still love that river. https://www.leaderherald.com/news/local-news/2017/07/johnstown-man-drowns/