Friday was a big day. The local paddling club had scheduled a first-timers' run down the Upper Yough, and I just happened to arrive at about 3 am that morning after a hiatus in the Adirondacks (aahhhhh . . . ). As soon as I cleared the cell tower-less woods of upstate New York, I ran through about a half dozen voicemails from the previous 48 hours. They all carried the same message: it was raining hard in West Virginia.As I drove southwest into the evening, I began to place calls in order to capitalize on the precipitation. The rain was threatening to make the Three Rivers Paddling Club First Timers' Upper Yough trip into a First Timers' Lower Big Sandy trip. Plan B all of a sudden became more exciting than Plan A.
About a half day later, I was sitting in the fabled eddy atop Wonderfalls with my heart thumping. A quick Hail Mary on the way to the lip got me exactly the projection I needed and before long, the "world had dropped out from under me; yeaaahhh" (Coop, 2007). Rob, who had successfully run the waterfall for his second time after his skills took a very quick escalation from a Class 3 to Class 4, was waiting in the pool below, beaming. Days like this just don't come frequently enough.
The end of the day may have been more monumental than the beginning. After driving back to the put-in, some of our friends had decided to do a second run and so we offered to drop their cars off at the take-out, a 30 minute drive over backroads not exactly fit for your everyday sedan, but not necessarily all that much out of our way. We quickly (uh, foreshadowing) roped the boats to my roof, and Molly, Rob, and I headed out in three cars. Up and out of the Sandy canyon and down and into the Cheat Canyon we went, moving more swiftly than we probably should have (uh, more foreshadowing) on the rocky dirt roads. It was simply a matter of time.
Driving down a steep narrow, rough road through the woods is becoming a common experience to me, but when a couple of big, yellow, plastic boats come crashing off the roof, onto the windshield, and then slide across the hood, I became a bit shaken. It all typically ends, though, when the boats come to a rest on the road in front of the car. However, on this road, that didn't happen. Rather, the heavy boats bounced off the road and picked up more and more speed as they made their way down the steep canyon wall toward the Cheat River. I stopped the car, jumped out, and watched as the two boats continued to bounce off rocks and trees without losing much speed. They both finally came to rest about 100 feet down the hillside.
Good thing I had my throw rope with me . . .
Git 'r Dun.
