Paddlin’ Ed

Well a couple of weeks back at the Cheoah run,  Darron P., Will, and I planned out meeting up on Gauleyfest weekend to run the Gauley.  Darron had gotten in touch with Kurt M. about hooking up with him and Milton and others to paddle.  I headed out on Friday afternoon to the campground.  Darron, Will, as well as Grif and Joey came in late that night long after I had gone to sleep for after a short preview of Gauleyfest and turned in early.

Saturday morning dawn,  a beautiful day,  nice temps 70-80’s, sunny blue skys.  We got breakfast made and down at the campground, and met up with Kurt and company, Milton, Robert P. and Matt D., who where also at the Campground.  Plans where to do the Lower on Sat. and Upper on Sun.  We drove to the lower put in or rather the drop-off point on the logging road up on the mountain side above, dropped our boats, dressed out, and ran driver/vehical shuttle to the bottom.  Once back it was off down the trial and steps down the mountain side, shouldering our boats.

 The group included 8 of us - Darron P., Will, Grif, Joey, Kurt M., Milton, and myself.  Level was somewhere about 2,800 cfs.At the put in we all took a few minutes to catch our breath, then into the boats warmed up a bit out in the river from the put in rock, and then off to “Koontz Flume” the 1st and one of the larger rapids on the run.  Grif had not run it in a long time and Joey was a 1st timer, so after pointing out to move well left away from the holes and undercuts below on the right we where off,  with Joey following me.  I was running my EZG60 which I had only paddle a couple of times on smaller stuff and hit a large wave hole above and endered over but rolled up imediately pointed upstream and spun just before the next wave hole and ran the drops on down headed left cleanly from there.  Joey close behind did fine, after suffering a moment of concern while I was rolling above.  Most of the group took a turn or two surfing the bottom wave below, then off downstream.

Down through “Junk-yard”, “Canyon Doors”,”Upper and Lower Mash” and a host of other smaller rapids along the way, everyone doing fine.  At Lower Mash,  most ran straight through, I went for the eddy on the left and ferried out and across above the drop turned and went for a slide of the curl on the right end of the 2nd wave into the eddy and found a nasty little curler at it’s bottom, and ended up banging my helment on rocks below the surface just downstream everytime I set up to roll and much to my dislike decided to extracate myself from position and boat in lew of getting another hard bang to the head.  Well after getting back together below,  and examining my helment it appeared to probably have been best based on a 2 1/2″ - C shaped crack the last hit left. (Guess I am getting a new helment, asap).  Anyhow from there on down to playstation and diagonal ledges.

The wave above play station was really good and quite a few where playing it,  I noticed Kurt got in on that action for bit.  On down at playstation, most of us got in the line, with quite a eddy full of paddlers.  I came out the 1st time and found my EZG60 surfed it really nicely, and went back around for 2nd turn.  Some of the group climbed up on the rock wall above, ate and took a break.  After a couple of turns myself,  I elected to run down the ledges below and stretch out on the rocks toward the bottom after eating.  While there along came Sue A. with Elizabeth and serveral others,  talked to Sue a bit.

Well serveral of the group got back in up at playstation and proceeded to play a while longer, Grif especially (I was afraid he might wear a hole in the river).  Eventually we all gathered up below the ledges and headed on downstream.  From there it was on down though some nice rapids and on to “Heaven’s Gate”.

At “Heaven’s Gate” I attempted to hit the right end of the pour over hole above to the right to help keep me to the right through “the gate”,  well I still got pushed left, and ran from in front of the left gate rock hard down the curl, and spun off the end of the tougue at the bottom into the eddy below.  Most everyone did fine,  serveral hit the pour over hole deeper right and where able to stay right in the gate.

From there it was down through “roller coaster”, “stair step”, and host of other nice rapids and on to “Cliff-side”.  At “Cliff-side we had to be a bit careful with all the rafts passing and other paddlers not to get to many folks in the eddy platform at the top.

From there it was on through various smaller rapids down to “Pure Screaming Hell”. Now “Pure Screaming Hell” while not that difficult to run if you on line, deserves respect,  cause if you in the wrong place in the upper part your going to have a bad day in at least two monster holes on the right side the will flip large rafts.  The second thing is to be sure to catch the eddy down toward the bottom on the left, that’s to set your line up to stay out of a couple of really big holes at the bottom.  Well all got down to the eddy on the left below the upper part just fine.  From there folks started running a line I have not tradionally done or seen done.  Normally I come out and drop to a small eddy just below on the left, and ferry out between two large diagonal holes, turn and run down.  Well I decided to give the other line a try,  all this worked ok ferry over right into the main flow, but what I didn’t realize is below being the last in the line everyone had drifted further and further right in what should have been a line back to the left.  Well,  I got down to the left turn as was just too far right and realized I would most probably end up in the left side of a huge hole on the right at that point trying pull the line back left, so spying a boiling and somewhat flowing through area far right against the cliff wall I jambed hard for it, got surfed sideway for a moment, reach way out downstream and over the bottom wave of the hole and pulled to boat up and over in a stern squirt.  After working the boat back down and pulling it into an upstream ferry I eddied out, getting a few cheers from Sue and Elizabeths group in the eddy below to my move out of the end of the hole.

All of the group gathered up and headed down the last few rapids and the long paddle out to the take-out.  We loaded up, set dinner plans,  I head back to the put in to take Grif and Joey back to their car as Griff had shuttle driver back that morning.  We all did dinner at Mexican in Summerville, and then spent and evening at Gauleyfest in town, with plans to meet in the morning to run the upper.