It's not just a bad sitcom featuring a really short guy being raised by an ex-NFL lineman.Mother Nature played a mean trick on us before the 2008 Webster Springs Wildwater Festival by indicating to the professional forecasters that she'd be dumping more than 2 inches of rain from the WV skies in the 48 hours prior to the festival. Plans went from running rivers to creeks to drainage ditches. Message boards buzzed with proposals to make first descents of every ravine in the state.
But, it didn't ruin the weekend when less than a half inch landed in Webster County, WV.
I spent Thursday evening with Grease Fire, Doug and the Steves looking at online river gauges and guidebooks. Bandwidth spent, gear packed and courage steeped, we
abandoned the Cheat River watershed and drove south on Friday to where her promise diverted. We were graced with minimal rain, though it was just enough to fill the banks of the Cranberry River in the Cranberry Wilderness of Webster and Pocahontas Counties. The pigeonhole effect brought several other groups to the only river with water that Friday, though the timing kept our group intact and isolated.The dynamic was perfect and I reiterate my personal thrill in paddling a river as though it is the solution to a problem. Two boaters in our group had paddled the Cranberry once and both pleaded no recollection of the rapids. That put an intensity to the trip that provoked each boater's "A-game" to make an appearance. A-games abound, we shoved into the current. Scouting the unknown bends and half-blind drops in the Cranberry was done from our boats and not a single member of our group ran into trouble.
Friday night of the festival was mild as more and more vehicles rolled into Camp Caesar. Piled high on the vehicles, boats of every color brightened the dark, damp evening. Drinks were plentiful as the buzz escalated: What will run tomorrow? What are you paddling tomorrow?
Perhaps it was the success of our descent of the Cranberry or perhaps it was embedded in our desire to drive an extra few hours on soggy backroads, but John, Grease Fire, and I decided to head back north for Saturday's run to paddle the Tygart River from Arden, WV. That put us in bad position to come back to the festival, but as it turns out the rain never came on Saturday night and so our gamble paid off.The minimum level for the Tygart River is 400 cubic feet per second. We found it at 1800, a high level, but (we'd decide after the fact) still safe. We drove along it first and declared the rapids to be Gauley-esque though a couple big hydraulics looked intimidating. None of us had run this river before and after paddling the Cranberry River the day before, the Tygart was a serious step up. Moat's Falls, a 15 or 20 foot waterfall, loomed downstream. Just above it were at least two ugly hydraulics.
It would be another success. This time we got out of our boats to take close looks at three sections, one of which was Moat's Falls, and decided to "sneak" a river-wide hydraulic next to an underwater rock cave by scraping down a nearly dry ledge of bedrock. Nonetheless, we all paddled over the lip of Moat's Falls and slammed into countless big waves and ugly hydraulics on our way down the Tygart.
Planning as we did, I even was able to make it to Pittsburgh with plenty of time to take Molly out for sushi, which was an interesting way of ending a day that began with greasy bacon, soupy eggs, and sausage gravy over biscuits being served by a local Webster County boy scout.Check out more photos here.
Git 'r dun.
