Surprise!

By Stephen Wright

Photos

After a few years of being skunked on water levels, I finally returned to
Surprise Wave on the New at a perfect flow. This wave is pure happiness.
Bryan Kirk and I had been eagerly watching the gauges, waiting for the
Thurmond gauge to drop into the good zone of happiness. On Sunday
afternoon, it happened–and it rocked! We wore ourselves out with a 4 1/2
hour playboating session including clean blunts, helixes, pan-ams,
airscrews, mcnastys, and everything else we could think of. Black Dog
chilled-out on the shore before following someone back to the car, where she
hung-out with some campers (who apparently fed her bread and spam….bad
dog!).

Surprise wave is just upstream of the normal put-in for the New River Gorge
run, which makes it the last rapid on the Upper New section. It’s a big,
fast, bouncy wave that give huge air and an exhilarating ride. It’s right
up there with the Dries Put-in waves, or Inner City Strife in terms of
quality. To get there, head to the Thurmond put-in and drive as far
upstream as you can go before you’re stopped by a gate. Once you get to the
gate, park and hike upstream about 1/2 a mile until you see the first big
rapid. Put-in, paddle across to river right, and enjoy the wave! A short
walk will get you back into the eddy, or you can kind-of hand-walk/claw your
way up the rocks at some levels.

You’ll want to check the New River @ Thurmond gauge, and are looking for
levels between 13,500 and 15,500 CFS for a good time. So it’s medium high
water. The link to the gauge is here:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=03185400

Enjoy a few photos that were shot by Bryan Kirk. One more magical day on
the New, then tomorrow it’s off to Canada. My Canadian Income Tax refund
just arrived–wahoo!!!

Live from Fayetteville, WV,

Stephen Wright