EJ and Dane hit West Virginia with perfect timing!

It is an indian summer here in West Virgina with high temps in the 60’s and lows in the 50’s!!! That is only the start, it is also very wet with 4" of snow that was melted by an inch of rain! Dane, Stephen, and I drove up with a Rocker and an All-Star each (Dane with Punk Rocker and Shooting Star). We are ready for water!

Yesterday was the first real day of water here with creeks running medium, medium low. We hit Mill Creek that flows into the New River just above the dam for the dries. This creek is only about 1.5 miles long but a really fun stretch. We hooked up with Stephen, John, Bryan, Kelsey, and Alan. Our first run we scouted the major rapids and the 20 footer. We did a couple of laps on the 20 footer and Dane made a short little video of that. The character of the run is lots of little slots, great boofs, some really technical steep rocky rapids, and at low/medium water; no holes really.

On our second run another Eric joined us and we boogied down the river with Bryan Kirk leading the way. One bad line by Eric caused him to have to get out of his boat at a sieve and carry over a rock to put back in at the beginning of the run, but we almost made the rest of the run without any eddies. Running down to the water fall is quite fun and just running straight off without stopping. I was following Dane down and jumped off the right line just 3 seconds after him. That is a neat view. The next major rapid, Headless Horseman, is a fun one. It is a slot move that when done right is really cool, and when not done right puts you under an overhang in the middle of the drop with paddles banging and head banging. (Dane was going to walk it on the first run but decided to run it and did really well).

There is one portage with a rapid that has a tree over it followed by a nasty set of cave making rocks below it. Apparently BJ has the unfortunate experience of swimming into the cave and having to get out. It is runable without the tree, just not recommended.

Today is the Gauley, top to bottom at 10,000 cfs!!! I have never run it this high, but Stephen has an says it is Zambezi style! Sweet! We’ll take our All-Stars down today. If you have ever been down the Gauley at 2,500 for a normal release, try to imagine 4 times the water! Awesome!

I’ll let you know how it goes!

🙂

EJ