Pretty in Pink: A Russell Fork to Remember

October 17, 2007

By Stephen Wright

After a month on the Gauley, the seasons begin to change, and so do the dam releases. Clay and I made the long drive up to the Russell Fork last weekend for 2 days of great paddling, lots of Rocker demos, and good fun with friends. In case you’ve never had the opportunity to paddle the Russell Fork, you should know a few things: The Russell Fork is just down the road from Elkhorn City, KY on the VA border. It’s a relatively short class 5 run chock full of some nasty rocks, but with pretty wide lines. It’s fairly high-volume AND steep, which makes it super-fun. The water is a lot colder than the Gauley. The gorge is incredibly beautiful, especially now that the leaves are starting to change. There’s a great campground at the take-out, where most paddlers stay–good for campfires and downtime. The water doesn’t get to the put-in until after high noon, so there’s plenty of time to get breakfast. There’s apparently now a sweet pizza place inbetween the put-in and take-out somewhere.

Clay and I each paddled Punk Rockers both days, which worked suprisingly well for both of us. I’m starting to feel that the Punk is the perfect size for me at 145, while Clay admits that he’s a little over-weight for it, but it still floats him well. Both of us have noticed that all the Rockers seem to paddle best a little back of center (I have my seat all the way back in the Punk). Clay decided to bust-out our Pink demo Punk in an attempt to “bring sexy back”. He was heard to remark, “it takes a big man to paddle a pink boat”. My muttered reply was that ‘it took an even bigger man to laugh at that man’… ANYWAY, Clay ran all the hardest lines we could find, including the “ugly slot” river left at Climax, and every line at Tower. I had fun following him all over that river, for both days. We also brought demo Rockers, Punks, and Megas to demo out–on Sunday we had all of them out, and lots of people were happy to have given them a try. It’s kind-of hard NOT to like the Rocker series. They’re just SO easy to paddle, and they love to stay on the surface. Enjoy the photos!

Live from Reno, NV,
Stephen Wright