One of the blessings of there being a relatively small whitewater paddling community is that there are only a handful of people from whom I can get the current buzz. I did exactly this on Friday, calling Mark Cooper, a Baltimore paddler who I barely know, but who I'm certain is paddling something challenging most every weekend. His response was that he and his crew had the Stony River in its sights.
Twelve hours later, I was the only patron of Twila's, a "family restaurant" in Bruceton Mills that will always take second fiddle to Little Sandy's. By the time I'd finished breakfast, 'Coop' and a portion of the crew had arrived, and I knew I was in good hands. Seasoned boaters, they introduced themselves and then got onto discussing some of the upcoming swiftwater rescue courses they'd be facilitating. My comfort level increased dramatically.
The night before, up to 8 inches of snow had fallen in the area, and just traveling to Twila's on the Interstate was a chore. The chore continued when our group, now around 9 strong, tipped the waitress and moved on to the rendezvous, Friendsville, MD. I-68 was atrocious. Our caravan of five vehicles slipped and slided the 20-or-so miles to Friendsville. We met more paddlers there, consolidated into fewer vehicles, leaving those with 2wd behind, and moved on again. There were now 13 in our group.
It took more than 1.5 hours of driving the snow-covered MD and WV roads to the put-in. When we pulled onto the shoulder, the outside temperature, according to my dashboard, was 17 degrees. I stepped out of the car into violent gusts, and the snow was coming down hard. I thought to myself, 'this is completely ridiculous.' At times like this, it introduces a bit of comfort if we're paddling something with a road, or even a trail alongside, and so I started to inquire about that, thinking that if I swim, then I'm not going to want to get back in my boat. No such luck, though; nobody knew about any sort of access out of the run other than paddling the river. Gulp.
Three would-be-paddlers decided at this point that they wanted no part of the Stony today. At the time, I couldn't blame them, but even though they made opting out more of a possibility, I still kept my hand in the game, and I think that it was probably because of the caliber of the crew with which I was paddling. Even though I only had met all of these folks a few hours before, I felt very safe with them. We put on all the cold gear we could squeeze into and dropped all of the vehicles off at the take out. Arriving back at the put in in the back of somebody else's van, I was committed.
The first "drop" of a Stony River run is on a different type of whitewater.
This river is fed from the bottom of the dam at Mt. Storm Lake, and we had suited up at the top of the dam. So, we all got into our kayaks and rode the fresh powder to the river bank. For about a quarter-mile, we dragged the boats a few hundred yards to the top of a steep section, climbed in, and let gravity take over until the gradient was too flat. Drag some more, and repeat. It was a simply incredible way to start the trip.The next two-plus hours were absolutely incredible. As I've talked about it all day today, I've been likening it to paddling a warm stream through the snowy shake-it-up globe that your grandmother puts on her mantle at Christmas time. A little research the night before told me that the Mt. Storm Power Plant is cooled by water from the Mt. Storm lake, which is then discharged into the Stony River. On a day like yesterday, that
spells 50-degree water that is so much warmer than the air that it actually steams. Though it was thick, the cloud of steam kept all of us wishing that we'd dressed very differently. Nobody's feet or hands got cold, and some paddlers even went swimming during a few of the breaks.I can hardly describe what this excursion was like. I kept thinking to myself that this is exactly why I took up paddling in the first place, and now, 36 hours later, I'm dying to get back to the Stony.
The photos on my Picasa site were hijacked from Mark Cooper. Thanks, Coop!
Git 'r Dun.
