Paddlin’ Ed

New River Gorge was on of the few rivers in day trip distance with water this year,  so Darron P.,  Gif G. & Joey, and myself did the early morning run to West Virginia.  After we all gathered at Tamarack for breakfast we headed to Fayette Station at the bottom of the gorge, set our shuttle, and did the run up to the Cunard put-in.  We had left NC thinking it was going to be just above 0 on the gauge but the dam upstream cut back overnight as it was -6″,  which in the New River is still a lot of water.

We unloaded to blue skies and warm temps, and private boater packing that was on overflow.  Seems everyone else had figured out it was one of the few rivers still running.  Sure enough,  there was quite a group of hard boaters on the river this day.  Rafts where moderate only backed up a bit above the Keeney’s and double Z.

We warmed up down through the entrance rapid and then Gif and Darron jumped in the right side of upper railroad and did a little surfing in the ledge hole,  then ran down to lower Railroad where we talked a bit about lines and avoiding the clam-shell entrapment that was in play big time at this level, plus the boof and tongue line on far left.  The others climbed up the left bank to look at the ledge,  I went ahead and ran right of the boulder out from the left bank, and tucked in behind it into a boiling platform eddy, then faded back, turned and ran out the chute/tongue through the hole going right to left below below the boof rock.  The other evidently decide not to run the left and went right of center through the wave train.

We continued to play down working the rapids,  stopping at the play wave spot for a while on river left, then moving one down through an assortment of rapids to the Keeneys.  We all ran left of center over toward moss rock through middle keeny.  Darron, Gif, and Joey got ahead of a raft group and got down lower,  I held up a bit to left a flock of raft by (no place to be in with rafts),  then caught a break and did a nice run.  Down below at this level there some good mystery move spots,  Gif got in those for a bit,  Darron took turn too.  All of us had clean lines through the keeneys.

On down at double Z  we played down,  with water low you had to make sure to stay clear of most of the rock out cropping as bad undercuts get exposed at lower levels.   On down a ledge above Greyhound bus stopper,  I ran the far left and a raft pullout in front of me as I reached the bottom,  I pushed off the front but was bowled over and had to hang bit to work to offside and roll.  At Greyhound,  Darron and Grif got in the far left a bit.

We had a great day and continued our play on down around and clear of Millers Folly and then played the remaining ledges and spots to Fayette Station.  We all worked our way down Fayette Station.  It was a good day and fun,  afterward we did supper at pies and pints and headed home.

SYOR – Paddlin-ed