I even managed to have my friend Frank ride shotgun as he was too young to drive. Frank emailed me a few weeks back after his contract job in advertising came to an end and he decided he needed a vacation.
The car was packed up on the wednesday night with our gear. I only managed to get a lousy four hours of sleep as my OCD kept me up thinking I forgot some I would most likely need on our journey south.
Thursday:
The only bummer with lack of sleep was that I now had to go to work for 06:30. It was a struggle to stay focussed while patiently waiting for the end of the workday to come along knowing you still had a long drive ahead of you. I also had to worry about Frank as he was still in the car sleeping for the day.
I managed to get away from work around 1pm and the roadtrip was now started with a slight detour to drop off a friends boat on the way before heading off to the border. I We made a quick stop at the duty free for a bottle of Bacardis. As always I end up picking the wrong line for US Customs. I ended up with the 50 million questions guy. I was finally able to leave after the five minute gruelling interview. The only upside of the whole conversation was that he did mention that I had a lovely sticker collection on my boat.
We managed to make it down to Grove City, PA before I started to get tired and decided to get a room for the night. I couldn't afford the extra money for a double and since Frank was recently unemployed and had no money he decided to spend the night in the car while I was snug as a bug in a nice warm bed!
Friday:
We did manage to be able to have breakfast together but I had to make sure no one saw me sharing food with him at the table.
And then we were off to the ASCI park in McHenry, MD. See http://www.adventuresportscenter.com/ for details. We managed to get there around 11am and ran into Andrew, Brian, and Cale from the Kawartha Whitewater Paddlers group. We spent the next few hours having a blast in the park. Frank somehow forgot his PFD and helmet so he had to sit on the shoreline and watch us paddle. I had a few out of boat experiences but that was part of the game. It is a totally amazing place to perfect technical eddy hopping skills and definitely worth the money. Just make sure you phone ahead to reserve a spot and find out when the water is running. There website was not totally accurate for the water relase schedule for september. I pointed it out to the lady in the office and she was totally shocked about the errors. I spent some time after paddling taking pictures of the course before we continued our journey over to Friendsville where we ran into alot of friends that had just finished running the Upper Yough river.
Luckily Frank and I were not pressed for time and only had 1.5 hours of driving left to my friends place near Lost Creek, WV. Pat and Pam treated us to snacks and gourmet chicken Hoagies made from scratch and done on the BBQ. They were totally scrumptious. We spent a few hours catching up before it was time to crash. We had to get up early in the morning to make the rest of the trip down to the meeting place near the Summersville dam.
Saturday:
We left around 05:30 which would give us ample time to get to the meeting point with a quick stop for breakfast at Mabels Truck Stop. I was hoping to get some pictures near dthe dam but it was totally fogged in. Soon people from all over were showing up. I met David and his two sons from Toronto shortly after my arrival. After that it was the JK crew starting with Wesley, Jim, Chris, Clay. We were split into our respective groups while waiting for some of the Jacksons to show up as they were running a little late. We ended up leaving without them in order to get the shuttle sorted out. We had two groups running the Lower Gauley that day and I was in one of them.
We finally make it to the put in road and stopped in the middle of nowhere which kind of freaked me out a bit. I looked over the side of the car and all I saw was a really steep hill full of trees and I am thinking holy crap I got to get my boat down that! It was then I was pointed to this trail which ultimately led down the river via some very steep sketchy wooden steps. I took my boat to the bottom and left it just before the last set of steps and headed back to the car to finish running shuttle to the takeout. I ran into a Don and Jo Beyer who I had met at Nationals back in July. They lived only an hour away and emailed me last week to se if I was coming down to paddle. We made arrangements to meet on sunday to go boating together.
Emily and EJ finally had made it to the putin while the shuttling of the vehicles was going on. It was great to see them again and catch up with Emily as I had not seen her since she had headed off to the World Cup in Europe about two months back.
And then ... finally ... it was boating time. Jim was the lead guide in our group and knew the river well. He would always tell us the preferred lines and what all the hazards were. Koontz Flume was a blast. I ran it down the left and then headed over to 5 Boat Hole for some surfing fun. I managed to get a front surf in on my first ride followed by an excellent side and back surf on my final ride. My boat was basically vertical and full of water but I managed to get out before making my way side surfing in two other spots on my way over to the other side of the river before emptying out. Oh ... I think I forgot to mention that I was the only open boat in the motly crew of kayakers.
At some point in time Dave managed to break half his blade off one side of his paddle. He was pretty upset about this as he just got it back from the manufacture from being broken before. Luckily he had a break down paddled as he would have been severely screw as we were only about a quarter down the river. I ended up carrying the broken paddle in my boat for the rest of the trip.
The rest of the day was a blast. Some of it was just fast flowing "boogey water" and other parts of it were very technical for me as I had to eddy hop around stuff in order not to fill up my boat or hit any of the big freakin rocks in the river. My most memorable moments were running Upper / Lower Mash.
My only out of boat experience came at the last big rapid known as Pure Screaming Hell. I somehow ended up out of my boat above the pour over. I was holding onto it as a extra PFD as I knew the hole was coming up quick. Everyone on shore was screaming swim left but the hole looked fine to me. The two off us went in and I held onto the boat waiting for the pull down followed by push up before letting go. My boat decided to side surf the hole for a bit as I was looking up river during my swim. Some girl threw me a line and I grabbed it only for her to let go as she soon realized that I would have pulled her into the river. Chris had an oh crap moment when he came over the lip of the pour over as he did not realize my boat was there. He ended up penciling straight in and submarine under it while it stayed there for a little bit longer before it decided it was done and came out. The swim wasn't that bad as I have had worse on the Ottawa.
The paddling day was soon over. I gave Emily, EJ, and I think Chris a ride back to the festival site. I had only just parked my car when I heard my name yelled out across the field. It was my friend Bill from Charlotte, NC that I had not seen in a while. I ended up camping near him as I had no clue where the other Canadians were as the place was packed. I managed to get dinner at the Jackson RV complete with wobbly pops in a can. I spent the rest of the evening looking thru the vendor booths. There were great prices for anything from boats to t-shirts with a large smattering of free beer.
I also did my duty and became a American Whitewater member. I was quite surprised in to find a beer ticket in the AW swag bag. I was also really surprised to find a copy of the latest magazine which included one of my pictures of Eli that I had taken at ALF 2008 complete with photo credit. I have finally been published for my second time this year as the first time was in a UK Paddling magazine. I was surprised as to how many people I knew at the festival. It was a great evening. I was getting pretty tired either due to sever lack of sleep or the eight beer I had or a combination of both but ended up going to bed early.
Sunday:
I was up early and headed over to Mabels for another great breakfast. I met Jo and Don at the New River Gorge info centre on the highway. We did the shuttle and hit the river.
Todays river would be the New River Gorge http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2418_
The only downside was the water was running low but on the upside there was no one else on the river and it was hot and the water was warm.
The low water made the features fun and technical. Don explained the preferred line for each set. They took their lines while I made my own ones. I spent lots of time practicing eddy hopping around rocks, ledges, etc. It was a total blast. They were paddling the same boat as me but in tandem configuration.
At one point Jo said it was so nice to watch me paddle as I actually taking the time to catch the eddies and stuff which was different from their regular crew who only ran the same lines with no deviations. I was making some pretty tight eddies and told them they should start doing the same.
We had a great lunch spot along the way at Lower Keeney where I managed to get out and take some pictures. The rest of the day was spent trying to find new lines where possible. We also managed to find a few surf spots as well.
We finished up around 5:30ish and said our goodbyes but not before discussing the possibility of coming back down next season for fours days of paddling together. I just cant wait until next year as it is absolutely gorgeous paddling in West Virginia.
I made the 1.5 hour trek back to Pat’s place as I had to go back their to crash for the night and pick up the rest of my gear that I stored there for safe keeping.
Monday:
Frank and I left early to make our trek back home. We made a few stops along the way for pictures including the American side of Niagara Falls.
I spent the night at my friends in Toronto to catch up on life before having to go back to work Tuesday morning.
