Ebbs

I find myself more inspired to post entries lately, but I often hold back, restricted by the title of this memoir. I don't know why I'm such a stickler to my own rules, but I've come up with a loophole: a new blog.

So, here goes. My new blog is Lugs, Chains, and Paddle Blades

I will post there when motivated to do so, and if the subject happens to involve The Great State, then I'll repost here.

Got r dun.

Cheatin' with the Family

On Friday I raced in the Cheat Downriver Race after missing the 2009 event. After crossing the finish, I got off the water, said a few hellos to some fellow competitors and spectators, lifted my kayak to my shoulder, and walked up to the parking lot at Jenkinsburg. There were several hundred frolickers and racers around me in the remote West Virginia river canyon. I located my friend Jen's Jeep, pulled out some tie-down straps that I'd stashed in my kayak earlier, and secured my boat to the roof. I then stuffed my gear in the boat, turned around and stopped the first car that came my way and asked them for a ride.

Not even half of the racers had finished, the kegs had barely been touched, and I was already sitting in the back of some stranger's Cherokee on my way up the long, rough road out of Jenkinsburg.

The entire trip, which consisted of two successful hitchhikes, took 3.5 hours. This is how my river trips go now; I wear a watch and I move efficiently. Navy S.E.A.L.s, eat your hearts out.

Despite the dramatic changes that have taken place for me and Molly in the past few years, the primary motivator for both of us remains unchanged: we're just trying to have fun. In fact, we try to eek out every last drop of it.

Everybody has to work. Everybody has to maintain their home, buy groceries, and pay bills. So, while it may not be any fun to do some of the things we all have to do, decisions to do things in my life are made with a fun:work ratio consideration. How will task x facilitate fun event y? If I decide against p, then how will that affect the fun q I've been planning? Life is a fun game to play, and winning the game means having the most fun. This isn't to say that I don't change diapers, and grad school really sucked, but a bit of foresight goes a long way in this game.

When Molly told me she wanted to go back to CheatFest after taking a year vacation from it (Indie was less than 4 months old for the 2009 event), I jumped at the opportunity. If I could do the race, then I would spend all day Saturday being a husband and father, no matter how many of my friends invited me to tag along on a river trip. We'd camp, we'd hike, and we'd enjoy the music at the festival.

By Saturday night we'd accomplished all of this and then some and getting home after the long weekend in the sun would have felt great if I didn't have yard work to do.

Git r Dun

Mother's Day at Rockville

There's no mystery; I know what's gotten into me, preventing me from (a) finding time to write in this memoir, and (b) having experiences worth sharing. Somehow I've found myself with a life full of grown-up responsibilities. There's a beautiful little red-headed girl named Indie tugging at my ankles. The tenure review process is heating up. All of a sudden, the important people in my life can be found in their houses and not their tents or pickup beds. And so, when I decide how to spend time away from my office, the creaks in the floorboards of our new home get more of my attention than the creeks of West Virginia .

I have not given it up, though.

Molly insisted that we spend her first Mother's Day playing. Just like we used to. With decent water abound and generally mild weather, I was happy to secure a loaner raft to show her the Upper Big Sandy from Bruceton Mills to Rockville. Indie was less than 4 months old and still preferred to sleep in her carseat, so it was an easy first time in a tent. We spent the weekend camping at Rockville, arriving Friday night and sharing the over-used riverbank campsites with a couple of friendly guys who were nice enough to invite us to their campfire. For Saturday, we'd arranged the company of a few friends to hang out with Indie while we rafted.

After a beautiful day on the water that included two runs of the Upper Sandy by some and a kayak run of the Lower by others, we enjoyed dinner at the fabulous Riverside Hotel in Friendsville. The cozy, quiet sophistocation of the mountains would end there. After saying goodbye to friends as they went their way, we headed back to Rockville. Things then went downhill fast.

We pulled into the campsite after dark and Indie was clearly ready to be nestled in for the night. Interruptions wouldn't typically be expected in situations such as these; we were driving into an uninhabited former mining depot reached only by rough backroads. It was too early in the season for the crowds who like to come and swim in the creek, and so we only expected to see a few of the campers we'd seen the night before. And, the night before was quiet. Based on what I saw as I pulled into our site, I was worried even before I turned the headlights off .

A small Chevy S-10 pickup sat marooned on a 2-foot high stump and two men stood next to it, drinking and pondering mechanical advantage. The rear tires were on the ground, but the front tires hovered 3 inches in the air. They were excited to see us. We were not excited to see them. Attempting diplomacy, I got out of the car, pulled the baby seat out in full view of our neighbors, and nodded with a serious brow, as if to say, "See this? It's a baby. I'm too busy with family matters to help you dumb asses get out of the situation you were stupid enough to get into." But, they didn't bite. They waddled over to me, looked at me, looked at my car, and said, "Dude, is this a Subaru? We need your help!" I wasn't biting either. For one thing, a Subaru is no tow truck. For another, I was busy and had to help Molly get Indie to bed.

To the non-parent, it may sound simple, as it did for me only a few months prior. Put the kid to bed. Plop. Done. No, no . . . the task starts with the warm-up activity of removing clothes from the baby's body. That's the easy part. Change diaper. Put new clothes on the baby. Feed baby. Wrap baby in swaddling blanket. All of these are difficult, and it gets cold at night in Rockville. Getting Indie ready for bed was a two-person, four-handed activity. So, when they asked me this question, I politely said, "okay; I'll be happy to help you guys figure out a solution, but first I have to help get my family ready for bed." "Oh, I toooootally understand, man; my little girl is turning 14 this year!"

For a second, I thought, well if this guy has kids, then he must have some sense about him. But I quickly remembered that procreation requires no sense and promised that I'd be back shortly.

Once Indie was asleep, I told Molly that it would be best for all of us if I helped these guys as much as possible. If they decided they didn't like us, I explained, then they definitely wouldn't be very respectful neighbors. I tried to make it sound as if the worst case was them not being courteous with their flashlights. When I arrived back at the scene of the treed S-10, I quickly made friends with the two men by looking around and taking a strong interest in their project. "We been tryin' ta git 'er unstuck, but that tree's right in the middle of it," I was told. I could see that the chassis of the pickup was resting on the tree stump. We tried a few different strategies, all of which consisted of trying to lift one corner of the truck while one of the increasingly drunk hillbillies sat in the cab and gave it gas. None of them worked. We got a better idea of the physics of the situation when I tried pushing the truck to the side from the rear fender. The truck spun like a lazy Susan.

I somehow successfully convinced the two men that it was time to call it a night. Their campsite was set up, it was nighttime, and the beer was still cold. "Maybe we'll have better luck in the morning," I suggested, trying to emphasize the we as if I had some intention of sticking around in the morning while these guys slept off hangovers.

I thought it ended there.

I went back to our campfire where Molly sat in a camp chair and drank with our more friendly campsite neighbors and laughed with them about the situation. A short time later, the unmistakable sound of an unmuffled engine roared in the distance and grew louder. I knew what was coming and didn't expect it to pass quickly.

In many rural areas, it is a fairly common hobby to take an old truck or jeep, remove its muffler and all other power-depleting mechanisms, and modify the suspension to accommodate for giant wheels. As if we were all of a sudden at the county truck & tractor pull, several of these beasts came creeping down the rough roads, intentionally taking every bit of boulder, earth, or small tree as a direct hit. Then came the sound of one of these beasts struggling as the others made their way out of the canyon. Revving and revving, we could tell that the truck was bouncing and jerking by the motion of the spot lights mounted to its roof. For a minute or two, we heard nothing but the earth-trembling roar of what turned out to be a 1980's vintage Ford F150 smashing back and forth against something. We had no idea what it was, but the truck could not overcome this obstacle. Then, silence. A creaky door. A slam. Unintelligible language. More silence.

I waited just a bit before I decided to try to get all of my new friends together. It was serendipity. Two drunk hillbilles with a truck stuck on a tree meet a third hillbilly with more horsepower than he can control in the middle of nowhere. I dashed over, exclaiming, "Guys! You need that guy's truck! He can get you off the tree!" Without proper explanation, this would make no sense at all, but on that night it was poetry. By the time I got back to the treed S-10, the new truckster had already joined the marooned party. So, I came upon the three of them, once again drinking and pondering mechanical advantage. You ain't so clever, they seemed to indicate as they looked at me, and said "Yeah; we found the guy, but his truck is dead now, too."

By now I could end this story because it doesn't go much further. The truckster had been "tryin' out my new truck; I traded it for my 4-wheeler today; and I was tryin' to plow some dirt around," when it just died on him. Good thing the two hillbillies he stumbled upon had extra gear and cold beer, because his other truckster friends never came back. But, before I walked away, our conversation went on to families.

One of the guys with the treed S-10 is a father and remarked at how fast the years pass. The other treed S-10'er agreed, "I remember when she was this big." All three gentlemen live nearby. When the father asked his buddy for confirmation on how big his little girl has gotten to be, the two got uncomfortably close to the creepy, incestuous line, crossed it, and kept going. Disgusted, I walked away, joined Molly and the others at our campfire, and told them about the conversation between the treed S-10'ers and the truckster. "Fuckin' rednecks," one of our neighbors said, "I'm glad I bought this," and pulled his jacket away from his chest revealing a pistol harnessed under his armpit. Molly didn't notice, and I ushered her to the tent.

I waited a few weeks to tell her about that.

The next morning, eager to avoid all of the sleeping creepers, we packed up and drove off to the trailhead to Wonderfalls. I asked Molly to marry me here and consider it to be an extremely special place. We were bringing Indie to see it for her first time.

Git r Dun.

First Time Cheatin'

My first ever shot at leading a club trip came this past Sunday, when 16 boaters agreed to put their faith in my guiding them from Albright, WV down the long and hearty Cheat River. To spoil the end of my report, this story ends well; the same 16 boaters cheerfully hoisted their crafts to their shoulders at the take out about 5 hours later while Steve Wang sheepishly admitted that he once was young and foolish enough to have jumped off the Jenkinsburg Bridge. I gasped and reminded him that it was “plumb crazy” for him to intentionally put himself into danger’s way (hint, foreshadowing).

Promptly at 9 am, we congregated at Little Sandy’s truck stop to perform the essential cognitive activity of the day: the shuttle. A mild headache later, five vehicles pulled out of the lot on their way to the take out while the remaining vehicles, their passengers, and 17 boats scattered about among the eternal revolving door of tractor trailers and pick up trucks.

A long shuttle drive later, we slipped into the orange waters of Muddy Creek and scraped down about 100 yards to the slightly less orange Cheat River. The group corralled at the confluence, and I told Jen “Stern Squirt” Raber that that a level of 3.7 feet was juicy, To be clear, I told her, the Cheat was not high. but it was most definitely not low. Overhearing me, Dave Greenwald rolled his eyes and chuckled while first time cheat boater, Martin Wittmann, took a big gulp and peeled out in his itty bitty Jackson playboat.

I forgot most of the lines. Actually, to be precise, I never really knew them. But, really, who other than a veteran Cheat raft guide knows the lines through the dozens of unnamed Cheat rapids? Feeling a bit silly, I announced to the group that if I don’t announce a line or if the line doesn’t become entirely obvious as they approached rapids, then it was on the left. John Brady chuckled, though I believe he knew I was right.

And on went our crew. They bopped through countless nameless class 2 and 3 rapids, putting their confidence in me. For some strange reason, this confidence remained strong even after my little spat with Big Nasty.

Which, for the record, was Grease Fire’s fault.

After scouting and successfully navigating Big Nasty, our group congregated in the eddies on both sides of the run out of the notorious hole. Rob “Grease Fire” Mitchell and I have a history of getting each other into trouble, and this was exactly what I was up to when I first attempted a surf of the big hydraulic. “Worst case is you swim out of it” was part of my advice to the newbies above Big Nasty, and what I reiterated to myself upon pulling my boat into the surge. Quickly it spit me out with a strong denial, and – just as I expected – Rob was eager to make his attempt. His surf was similarly a non-surf. After getting similarly denied, he looked back at me and nodded, as if to say, “go for it.” And so I upped the ante and really dove into the hole.

Jason Hilton tells me my bow went deep into the hole and then swung hard into the foam pile for a few bow-to-stern cartwheels.

On my end, it was utter chaos. I had about 0.5 seconds of sense and began to set up a roll, but from there it was nothing but mayhem. Giving up relatively quickly, letting go of the paddle, and pulling the skirt typically ends with a big breath of air, but in this case the next thing that happened was an aquatic gaze up through several feet of pearly green water followed by more tumbling. It would be an uncomfortably long time before that gulp of air came. And, when I did come to the surface swimming aggressively, I opened my eyes only to find myself swimming upstream in the recirculating boil. I was at the top of the foampile staring down about 12 feet into the meat.

After I hacked up more Cheat River water than I wish to admit, I received a round of applause. It was then that I looked down to discover that the two Snickers bars I’d stashed in my PFD were gone. That damn hole literally ate my lunch.

I like to think of the Cheat as a very long chain of flatwater pools connected by about 30 rapids. Those pools make the collection of gear much more convenient when playboaters get stuck in holes and swim. It happens to lots of playboater all the time, and it happened to us on Sunday.

But, the real event came to life just above Pete Morgan’s rapid.

After scouting Coliseum, we set up safety with a rope on either side of the outflow and boaters in eddies. We did not want a swim out of Coliseum to turn into a swim through Pete Morgan. Moments later (okay, more like a half hour), after a successful run through the big rapid by all, we began to hop eddies to get a good look at Pete Morgan. Halfway there, I glanced back to see, for a split second, a rare triple side surf in three distinct adjacent holes. All three accidental sidesurfers looked calm, but they were all working hard to become unstuck. By the time I had jumped to shore with a rope, Jen had flipped in her hole only to right herself with a blown skirt. As water rushed into her boat it favored the stern cavity and by the time she was in the meat of Pete Morgan, Jen was paddling a swamped boat in an eternal stern squirt. Remarkably, her line was clean. She jumped out and began to swim while the rest of the group rounded up her gear.

With confidence high, the group chatted and laughed, telling tall tales through the final miles of runout below Pete Morgan. We returned to the put in soggy and tired and redistributed bodies and boats while Ralph Teter prepared his campground for CheatFest. Judging by the size of the fire he set to burn the rubble that accumulated over the winter, it appears that he’ll be ready.

The 2009 TRPC First Time Cheatin’ Trip included John Brady, Paul Eisner, Rick Gates, Dave Greenwald, Jason Hilton, Alan & Andre Kumonkowski, Jeff Lorimer, Ed McGuiness, Rob Mitchell, Jen Raber, Phil Raber, John Rudland, Steve Wang, Martin Wittman, and Matt Zeleznik.

A day of firsts

Despite my personal policy, it is worth noting that on Friday the 12th, Matt Z and I attempted a run of the upper reaches of Thompson Run in Penn Hills. It had rained all day and so we were happy to find the little micro-creek gushing with water. Devoid of any beta on this gutter of the Eastern suburb of Pittsburgh, we assumed incorrectly that the take-out was at Hank's Auto Body off Thompson Run Rd. The friendly (aka, drunk) patrons of the Universal Joint then directed us to a drainage ditch that was running and which we assumed was our put in for Upper Thompson Run. After a handful of portages, a lot of bushwhacking, and at least two chest-deep episodes in the disgusting sludge water, we "successfully" paddled about 500 yards of a drainage ditch that was no wider than our kayaks are long -- betcha can guess how we found that out -- before all of the water on which we were floating disappeared into a big pipe. Tails between our legs, we decided we need to do more research and have since deduced that Hank's is the put in, and that this could be a nice gem to ride all the way to Turtle Creek, or perhaps even further to the Mon after our next big downpour. A bit more daylight would be helpful, too.

But, that's too far north to be discussing at length in this archive.

So, on the following day and after disinfecting our gear, I was happy to lead three first-timers down the now familiar Lower Big Sandy (LBS). Those of us in the know for this run were not concerned about the skill levels of the three, especially given the beginner-friendly level at the bridge.

The three first known firsts of the day could be seen in the anticipation of our three newbies -- actually, just in Mike -- and the fourth was the level, 5.3 feet at the Rockville bridge, the lowest any of us had run it. Then, the ratio of beginners to experienced boaters (3:4) would be considered inadvisable and high and the highest any of us had experienced on the LBS. A 6th first was attempted and successfully carried out when we strapped a total of 8 boats to the roof of my car, a precipitous act considering that the drive to the put included Rockville Road.

A bit of mangled knuckle skin and some trauma discovered by two head-on piton at full speed later, the group arrived at the mouth of the Sandy as its sediment-laden waters dirtied the clear water of the Cheat.

Here are a few more photos from Saturday.

Git 'r Dun.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad race

I was so sad on Saturday; so very, very sad.

You see, I had spent months running and pedaling my mountain bike up the gnarliest climbs I could find in my nearby woods and paddling up and down the rapids in the rivers all around my new home in Pittsburgh. It was all in anticipation of this year's Captain Thurmond's Challenge triathlon and it would be my third year competing. Everything looked to be perfect. My legs were fresh and strong and my fitness right where I thought it should be in order to perform well. I'd been in my new racing kayak for a few races and dozens of workouts, and at this point I really felt at home paddling it.

The race began well. The biking section would have a new course in 2008 so that the race could start and finish in Fayetteville, WV. After about a half mile of riding through the town's quiet streets, the racers entered the woods. We weren't quite spread out enough at that point, so some ritualistic bumping and passing was necessary. After a few descents and climbs on the singletrack course, I sat comfortably in position somewhere in the top 15 riders as the passing diminished. It was looking to be a good race!

Then, just as the race director had described in the pre-race meeting, the trail opened up to a graveled forest road. Down into the gorge I raced and once in awhile I was able to see a racer or two ahead of me when the road opened up for a straightaway in between switchbacks. Screaming down the mountain we went. At a rightward turning hairpin, a volunteer stood there, presumably for safety, encouraging us to keep going. A quarter mile further down the steep road in next hairpin turn to the left, the road opened again to a long, straight descent. I clicked my shifter into its highest gear and picked up speed.

I though it seemed odd that we were going so far away from Cunard.

Cunard is the place where we were to ditch our bikes for our boats and paddle to the end of the New River Gorge at Fayette Station. But, we were getting closer to Fayette Station on our bikes, not Cunard. Oh well, I thought, I haven't seen any course markers and there are still fresh tire tracks in the muddy sections. There must be riders ahead of me.

Slight panic began to sink in with my first glimpse of the New River Gorge Bridge, high above Fayette Station. This was a long way from Cunard. But there are still tire tracks! A group of hikers then encouraged me that there were eight riders ahead of me. Allright! I'm in 9th position! This is really my year!!

My slight panic became more intense when I reached the paved road and found one of my competitors, dejected, standing next to his bike.

"We're going the wrong way!", he shouted.

"Are you sure?", I protested.

"We're at the take out!", he said with eyes of disappointing solidarity.

A few bystanders disagreed. "The other racers went down that road!", they said. We shrugged to each other and off we went down the road. This road is one way, I thought, as we cranked our bikes as fast as we could down the steep, paved hill. But no cars approached us. Instead, we came upon those other racers that the bystanders had told us about.

"There's nobody down there!", one of them shouted, clearly infuriated. I was now in a group of about ten riders, two of whom won the race in previous years. This group was not happy. Kill the Monster lynch mob visions danced in my head.

Later, when I came upon a National Park Service Ranger's Jeep driving through the woods, saw the expression on his face, and heard the words he had to say, all hopes of seeing my results among the better ones in this year's vanished.

I had stopped racing. But, something inside me wouldn't allow it to be over until I heard it from an official. And, with the ranger's brown NPS uniform and white and green jeep, it doesn't get much more official than that in the New River Gorge National Recreation Area. I was just so sad.

And so, from Fayette Station, two riders decided to ride along the railroad to Cunard, disqualifying themselves from the race by doing so, but it was the most direct way to get to their boats so that their team could proceed. The rest of us began to backtrack. For miles (and miles!) we all had descended into the New River Gorge at breakneck speeds. Now we slowly ascended back out, feeling cheated. At the point where asphalt gave way to dirt, the two previous year's winners accepted a ride from a pickup, leaving about 6 of us to continue into the forest. We rode together, licking our wounds, bitching about how in the world a race director could possibly fail to mark a turn off a screaming fire road descent!

And that's when we ran into the ranger. His words should have reinforced what we already knew, but for some reason (denial) it was hard to hear that the entire race was now ahead of us because we'd missed a turn off that fire road.

Several hours later, after transcending the remaining grief steps (actually I was still stuck somewhere between depression and acceptance), I found myself back in Fayetteville. In the meantime, I had decided to stop racing after completing the remainder of the bike course and then paddling to a point where I found my friends from Three Rivers Paddling Club on the river. Telling race officials that "122 is pulling out of the race", as much as it pained me to say it, came at Fayette Station. I've felt this emotion before, but it's been due to injury, not personal protest and exhaustion. When I found the race director, things changed. I had clearly not been the only one ready to tell him exactly how badly he'd screwed up (er, how angry we were that he did). Shaking his head while holding it in his hands, he was courteously apologizing to each of the racers who stood in front of him. He knew that the mistake was on his watch whether or not he'd carefully instructed his volunteers. I imagined myself in his shoes.

And so I began to walk away after leaving him with my name for my refund check. As he maturely took his next tongue lashing from the line of tongue lashers, I looked up at the Fayette County Courthouse and the big, bright blue sky illuminating its stone facade and the dozens of townspeople who had come out to support the race. I stopped in my tracks and turned back. "Hey, Adam!", I shouted. The race director looked up like a victim. "I'll be back next year."

Git 'r Dun

Here's the Beckley, WV Register-Herald story on the race.

Whiting's Neck Cave

This one is a throwback and -- once again -- it was Jeremy's idea. I recently came across a photograph that reminded me of this one and decided it was worth writing up.

While I was living in the DC area, the Eastern Panhandle was about 70 miles from my home. In anticipation of a mild 2003 January weekend, the two of us spent far too many hours researching caves in the Harper's Ferry area on the Internet. I had heard of their existence, but as the code of grotto explorers the world over goes, their locations are not to be disclosed. I recently found my notes from the Internet sleuthing and resulting adventure.

It's called Whiting's Neck Cave, named after a nearby bend in the Potomac River, and somehow we found it. It required a day-long adventure because much of it was spent bushwhacking through fields and the woods. When we'd find a hole in the ground that looked like it might lead to a cavern, Jeremy would don his helmet and headlamp and get down and dirty attempting to squeeze himself in. If we'd have been spotted by a local landowner, I can only imagine the reaction upon one guy (me) standing guard with the other (Jeremy) only visible from the waist down, sometimes with legs spidering while he wrestled himself into an inverted vertical position.

After many hours of this despite being entirely convinced that we were walking on top of a cave, we finally stumbled upon a power line trail into the woods from a farmer's field that was mentioned in a vague online description of the directions to the cave. Along the trail, we found a few more holes that proved to only allow Jeremy to go subterranean to his ankles. Then, we finally stepped around a boulder garden that revealed a hole tall enough to walk into. About five feet in, the ground dropped into blackness and the top of a wooden ladder invited visitors to see what's down there.

It was just as we'd hoped. Crawling on the smooth, slimy, off-camber rocky cave floor, we dutifully became a muddy mess from head to toe as we shimmied through holes and squirmed around stalactites and stalagmites. A few interestingly large rooms enabled us to straighten our backs for a moment and get oriented before entering the next small tunnel. Jeremy broke out the Pep-o-Mint Life Savers, as expected.

Despite claims that the cave was linear (different exit and entrance), we each carefully kept a mental map for our way back out of the cave as we came to each bifurcation in the cave's passageways. Our Internet notes told us of a 50-foot rappel into a lower, terminal section of the cave and upon reaching a drop into utter blackness accompanied by a few rock bolts at the top for attaching a rope, we knew that we were there. And, we came prepared.

With a big heave after tying it off, the coiled rope was sent flying. We had tied a "stopper" knot into the lower end of the rope in case it wasn't long enough, but that didn't drive away the butterflies from swarming as I clipped in and started lowering myself over the precipice. There was nothing to see below me but painfully silent darkness. Slipping around on the slimy wall, I stumbled my way down the face and was soon standing safely at the bottom in a few inches of water. A short time after signaling up to Jeremy with a flicker of my headlamp, he was by my side at the foot of the big wall while the rope dangled for us to return.

After a bit more exploring in the lower section, we reached our turn around. Friends back home were instructed to notify help if they hadn't heard from us by a specific time, and in order to be sure to beat that time while allowing wiggle room for what may be a difficult climb back up what we'd rappelled down, it was time to go.

Retracing our steps back to the rappel was easy, and in a short time we were back at the foot of it staring at the dangling rope. This time, however, the darkness loomed over our heads as we looked up at a boot camp style 50-foot hand-over-hand climb up a slimy wall. With mud covered hands, we were a bit unnerved.

After a few attempts, we stood at the top and we were exceedingly glad to have worn helmets. And, climbing that rope was definitely not a solo job.

With the big hurdle behind us, we were light on our toes on the return trip. The task now was making effective use of our mental maps and at one junction we found that they were not the same. We reached a large cavern and were looking at two tunnels. While my instinct told me that the left tunnel was the way to go, Jeremy's indicated right. As the butterflies returned, sweat began to accompany an elevated heart rate. I'd freaked in a cave once before when I was in high school, and I began to feel the sensation again. Trying to stay cool, I suggested that we each take our own suggested route for exactly 5 minutes and returning. With luck, one of us would reach a point of recognition, confirming that route as the correct one.

When I freak, I tend to move quickly, perhaps to find comfort as soon as possible. I was happy to find that comfort in the form of a monster rock formation known as the Wedding Cake that we'd passed earlier in the day and of which we'd seen photos earlier in the week on a website. We met back at the freak out spot a few minutes later and Jeremy told me that his tunnel was a dead end.

With some of the remnants of anxiety staying with me, we quickly moved through the tunnels until we saw the light of day at the top of the ladder. When we got back to the car and into cell phone range, we made our phone call several hours before the dreaded, prearranged rescue time. Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, I have no electronic photos from the day, but I do have the notes from the trip including detailed directions to the cave entrance. I don't consider myself a spelunker, but I respect the social mores of those who are. So, I'm not just giving them to any old Joe. You know how to contact me if you want them.

Git 'r dun.

The Thrill of Gravity

I didn't mean for it to happen, but somehow gravity played a significant role in the activities of the first warm weekend of 2008. And, I (somehow) got it off to a good start with a dinner that inspired Molly to articulate some ways in which West Virginia is "just like" Paris. Those particulars include riverside dining (in this case, the Monongahela River is like the Siene) and the well-placed, colorful flowers in common areas, but my interjections sealed the metaphor: the people are generally dirty and they eat rabbits; they smoke a lot and despite a lousy reputation among outsiders, pride in their homeland rules with intense fervor; not to mention, they talk funny and experiment with strange arrangements of facial hair.

After our special dinner in a centuries old grain warehouse overlooking the Monongahela, Molly and I headed for Nelson Rocks for an experience unlike any other. We met our friend, Kent, and his son, Zachary, for a vertical traverse of the via Ferrata -- a network of steel rungs, cables, and 100 foot long wood and cable bridge spanning 200 feet over a canyon -- to spots hundreds of feet above the forest.

The via starts difficult and crescendos to asinine by the time climbers get to the swinging bridge. We were graced with warm temperatures in the high 60's, but gale force winds made our experience gripping. Looking down at the small small planks of wood suspending your body on the cable bridge, all one has to do to look down at the forest below is to focus between the planks. "Don't look down" takes on a very different tone when it must be rephrased to "don't focus on the ground." Yeah right!

With each reach, stability is questioned as you climb the via Ferrata. What might normally be a perfectly stable position on a 12-inch wide step becomes precarious when the drop beneath the step would be a deadly fall. Yet, as more and more of the via was behind me, the cumulative experience left me more comfortable and trusting in the harness system anchoring me to the rock. However, when our guide pointed to the optional "bonus" loop that scaled a vertical and overhanging spire of rock that is 6 feet wide at the top with 500 foot drops on either side, comfort was diminished. Kent took the bait and started up. Molly was next, but only because I was right on her heels.

As the wall became an overhanging precipice, Molly spidered her way up. I did not. In fact, I am not even ashamed to say that it was never my intention to collect my "bonus." Rather, Molly continued under the presumption that I was right behind, got to the summit of the knife-edge of rock, belly crawled 10 feet across to the down-climb while the wind attempted to pluck her and Kent to the mercy of their harnesses, and slowly spidered her way back down to relatively safety. I got a couple jabs to the shoulder and she admitted that she was glad to have done it. It was a classic move, but I've been up on that "bonus" summit before and vividly remember saying I'd never do it again. That I could never do any real rock climbing is reinforced again and again.

The trip came to a solemn, pivotal crux when our guide, Brian, explained the dangers of releasing the safety harness from the via's security with his first-hand experience. It was less than two years ago when his then girlfriend fell to her death from the via. The story from the September 25, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette details Nelson Rocks' only fatality. Listening to Brian explain how the fall happened was ample reinforcement to never release both lanyards from the via Ferrata.

With visions of death, we ended our upward adventure by returning to solid ground where gravity isn't so lethal. We joined some of our paddling friends for dinner and then our group returned to the cabin at Dolly Sods to get our boating gear ready for Sunday's downward adventure.

Sunday morning, we woke to snow flurries. However, this group is braver than most. The thought of a day on whitewater in these conditions only inserted a small taste of hesitation among the group, but after a few layers of neoprene (er . . a few dozen layers), we were ready to go. We joined the Three Rivers Paddling Club Jim Blackham Memorial Trip by meeting them at the put in for one of West Virginia's most scenic runs, the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac's beautiful Hopeville Canyon. It was my first time in a Shredder -- a 2-man rubber catamaran raft -- and Molly's first time in the canyon. The gear worked and we both emerged at the bottom of the canyon dry, warm, and smiling.

Here are some more photos from Nelson Rocks, and here are some more from Hopeville Canyon.

Git r Dun

Webster '08

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.

Wonderfalls

Finally, proof emerges of the marvelous Wonderfalls.

Git 'r Dun.

Dolly Sods Winter(less) Trip

I spent about 5 hours traveling back and forth from Pittsburgh to Friendsville, MD yesterday to solve a problem. I didn't realize that this was the reason, but in spending that time with my friend, Jason, articulating precisely how each of us feels about the activities that we share led us both to the same conclusion. We like to create and then solve problems.

And so, wearing this all-encompassing cloak, the activities that occupy both my professional and personal time fall into a comfortable category.

Last week I hosted a group of friends on a problem solving expedition to a cabin at Dolly Sods.In planning the trip, the problem to be solved had several constraints. The road to the cabin is impassible when covered in snow. The cabin has no electricity or plumbing and the cabin is heated by a woodburning stove. Food must be packed in. And, most importantly, it must be fun to endure all of these constraints. For months I badgered friends with tales of deep snow, high winds, and bitter temperatures. Email after email encouraged hearty participants to pack "layers, layers, layers" to stay warm and snowshoes or skis for efficient travel on the impassible forest road. I had loaded the cabin with three carloads of firewood in anticipation of the trip. Set aside weekends in February, I encouraged them; the snow will be there.

As it happens, the most limiting of that list would be voided by Mother Nature because there was no snow on the road and so we drove right up to the front door and unloaded our gear. In a trickle-down effect, other problems were subsequently voided and so we might as well drive in a few cases of beer, right?

With the initial problem solved, the group of 8 of us then began creating more problems to solve. The gas grill in the cabin ran out of propane and so we cooked on the woodburner. The trail we wanted to hike would end on a forest road, miles from both the car and cabin. We chose to hike it nonetheless, hoping the drivers could successfully hitch-hike back to the cars (they did). I don't doubt that the course of the weekend was dictated by the group's initial quest to come out of the trip feeling a sense of accomplishment.

I like to organize another annual trip that involves summiting a 3800 foot steep and rocky mountain in Shenandoah National Park at nighttime. Held in the late fall when there are no leaves on the trees to block the moon's full brightness, we solve problem after problem and then celebrate back at our rented cabin.

To get to the cabin at Dolly Sods, we drove up Forest Road 19 from the Eastern side of the plateau prepared to stop at the first steep section of road that was iced over. Encountering no such sections, we continued to the cabin and began a hot fire in the woodburner and began to discuss where we'd hike. The Red Creek trail won us over and the rest of the day was spent in the woods navigating our way on the approximately 7 mile hike along pristine Red Creek to the Rorbaugh Plains rock outcroppings. In doing so, we forded countless small brooks, some which were sheets of fragile ice, each one a small, independent problem to solve. We even spent about an hour solving the very difficult problem of crossing Red Creek, where the powerful water was ice cold and most exposed rocks were coated with a sheet of ice. Once that problem was solved by a few members of the group, we all decided that the existence of a solution was satisfying enough and we proceeded up the creek without crossing.

Back at the cabin, Saturday night became legendary as everybody disclosed the foods that they'd brought for the group. Because no coolers were needed, the group had packed in a feast. Grease Fire even showed up, driving his RC car all the way up to mountain and across the meadow. But, we had fireproof gloves with us and so nobody got burned. Even the dogs will never forget that evening at the cabin.

On Sunday we hiked the most popular trail in the region to the summit of Seneca Rocks and saw only two other people there. The benefits of winter adventuring reveal themselves over and over. Because there was no paparazzi, we were able to shoot an episode of the Michael Burke Show, which continued at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas.

Check out more photos here and here and here and here.

Git r' Dun.

Bloodline

At the request of somebody very dear to me, I am publicly admitting that after a year and a half, I now have WV running through my veins. In case anybody reading this is not convinced, here is some support of this admission:

1. I drive the state's other official vehicle (not a pickup). It's a Subaru and it's very dirty. Always.
2. My bookmark is a twig.
3. The beard, which stores my bookmark while reading.
   
4. Local parlance such as the following sometimes finds its way into my vocabulary: reckon (v.), holler (n.), yeller (adj.), and git 'r dun (v.).
   
5. I just bought a dehydrator so that I can make my own jerky.
6. I frequently describe things as being wild or wonderful.
7. One of my current projects is a quilt.
   

Am I missing anything?

While hiking recently, my friend Andrew commented that nobody his age (early-mid-20's) does anything like this (this being a very soggy hike down Big Sandy Creek after a big rain) and it got me thinking that either Andrew is somehow avoiding the people in WV who actually get out, or he is right.

Git 'r Dun.

Close Call on the Sandy

"GET ME A ROPE UP THERE!"

When it became clear that a swift and effective rescue was necessary, veteran Big Sandy Boater Max Harbert took the reigns of the rescue of his friend, Joe (name changed for protective measures), who had found himself in a potentially deadly bind at the notorious Splat rapid, a sequence of two difficult drops. The first drop cascades while losing about 8-feet of elevation as it crescendos through sticky and complicated holes and had reeled Joe into its G-spot. Squirting his boat into a short vertical dance, Joe landed upside down in the rapid's fast current headed for the second drop of Splat, a 15-foot waterfall that lands on a trailer-sized boulder. Separated by about 30 feet (seen in the photo to the right), the duo presents paddlers brave enough to attempt a run with little margin for error. Descending the waterfall safely requires a swift and strong trajectory to the left. Boaters swimming the bottom drop or running it in any other fashion are generally likely to be subjected to consequences ranging from serious injury to drowning.

Big Sandy Creek was running at an enjoyable level of 5.85 feet on the Rockville gauge for the final Saturday of 2007. When my kayaking partner for the day, Jason, and I got to the put in and began to suit up, I expressed surprise at the fact that there were no other cars parked there, giving us the false promise of a quiet and unobstructed run down my favorite local river. The fallacy of it was exposed within a few minutes when a caravan of six more vehicles arrived. Safety comes in numbers, so part of me was relieved and ultimately, the cliche proved itself true on this day.

The mile or so to the first waterfall, Wonderfalls, is an exciting warm up for the big rapids below and a good time for the paddlers in a group to become acquainted with each other. In this case, there were several first-time Sandy paddlers in two groups making up about 15 boaters. The first timers had all successfully run much more dangerous rivers like the Green (NC) and Blackwater, so we all proceeded with no concern and ran the approach and Wonderfalls. Waiting at the bottom of the 18-foot drop, the group saw no issues whatsoever and so we all peeled out into the current and moved on.

It was only a week ago at Wonderfalls where I had witnessed both the most fearful and astonishing moments of my whitewater experiences. After beaching himself onto the ledge at the top of a swollen Wonderfalls, a member of the group in which I was paddling spun sideways to a position parallel with the ledge, and toppled over, landing on his side. To our concern, he disappeared completely for an exceedingly uncomfortable period of time and we saw no equipment, boat or swimmer emerge from the violent hole at the bottom of the falls. After a minute or two, we astonishingly discovered that he'd executed a roll only to find himself behind the waterfall in the large space under the overhanging rocks.

A paddler swam at Little Splat. I was told that he hadn't met his annual quota, so there was little anything could do about it. There's no sense in fighting the River Gods.

The near tragedy then occurred at Splat, and the intensity of the rescue that ensued in the relatively small distance between Splat's two drops was bone-chilling. When the day's first Splat runner, Jason Hilton, indicated his intentions, I proceeded to the best rope-throwing position at the foot of the first drop. From this position, a rope can reach across the river far enough above the big waterfall to pull a swimmer to an eddy before an unthinkable swim onto Splat rock can occur. Jason, who runs Splat regularly, paddled through both drops without incident, perhaps giving Joe a poor impression of the precision required in running the rapid.

And so, equipped with the best wishes of all of the members of both group, Joe proceeded. His run was ugly from the beginning. With a near-flip at the top of the first drop, Joe was moving sideways while bracing hard on his right side as he entered the mayhem of the hole at the bottom of the cascade. Within a few seconds, he was attempting his roll while being pushed against the cliff on the right side of the river, where the current is at its strongest. But, his attempts failed as he scraped his paddle against the rocks over and over. Finally coming to rest underneath an overhanging section of the rocks, he quickly exited his capsized boat and found himself in a grotto behind a small waterfall. We were all relieved to see him give the "a-ok" sign by tapping his head with his hand. Joe even was hanging onto his paddle and boat!

Because I was on the left side of the river and Joe was inside a narrow space, I was unable to do more than to be ready to throw a rope to him if he came out into the current. I started walking back to where the group was all standing, but was quickly and smartly sent back to my position by Max. Several paddlers jumped into their boats, splashed into the water below the waterfall, and paddled across to the other side. Jumping to their feet with ropes in hand, they then quickly scaled the cliff and moved their way to a point directly above Joe.

The rescue from there went smoothly. Ropes and hands were offered to Joe, which he gratefully accepted and he, along with his boat and paddle, was raised to safety. Joe and Max hugged each other there on the rocks, and a small celebration erupted among the rest of us. I have been witness to such celebrations before, and it is difficult to adequately describe the feeling associated with seeing a life saved by the actions of others. It was a great way to end an unforgettable year of paddling.

More photos can be found here.

Git r' dun.

Adventures North of the Border

This weekend I spent the days on PA rivers. My trip report from Got Boof from a dramatic Sunday on Indian Creek is reprinted here:

The elation associated with seeing my friend Mike ashore, grinning and arms waving, was significant enough to allow me – for a moment – to forget about my physical discomforts. The soreness in my back from paddling as swiftly as possible for five miles and the numbness in my fingers, the stinging on my face, and the shivering in my core from doing so in sub-freezing temperatures into a strong headwind were overtaken by relief. Mike was literally and figuratively out of the woods and this meant that we would not be faced with the prospect of beginning a search for him there in these conditions.

We started the day with a plethora of prospects, but needed to be on the safe side. It had rained enough overnight to bring up some of the gauges and because Mike is a beginning paddler, the options were a bit more limited. After toying around with the idea of the Casselman River (too high), Laurel Hill Creek (probably our safest bet), and Indian Creek (just a bit of a challenge for Mike), we opted for the latter because it came with the addition of our friend Jason, who would add 33.3% more safety on the water. That seemed to make Laurel Hill Creek a less desirable option, and as we found out later, that was actually a 50% increase because our friend Art came along as well. Indian Creek it was. Grease Fire did his best Indian impression, though I'm not certain that any American Indian actually ever repeatedly hit his or her mouth with their hand while making a loud "O" sound.

Indian Creek at the level we found it yesterday is a lot like the Lower Yough with the addition of two 6-foot ledge drops that excited the experienced paddlers in the group (Art, Jason, "Grease Fire" Rob, and me) and challenged Mike to experiment with a boof stroke. His first experiment failed, and after a short sideways ride in a curtain, Mike swam out of his boat. Strike one. In general, few holes on Indian Creek were not punch-worthy, but Mike found one of these a short time after his first swim. Strike two. In fact, after swimming out of this hole, his boat found itself abandoned for the first time that day on a mid-river ledge. No fear; Indiana Jones brought his whip. Cue in the theme music.

With Mike's third swim came his third strike. All agreed it was time to walk. Because we were more than halfway down the Indian, he would walk downstream. When he reached the confluence with the Yough, we would all paddle the flatwater five miles to the take out. The wrench in the plan came about 30 minutes later when Jason and I realized that there are two un-crossable tributaries before that, Rasler and Richter Run. It was at that moment that I became unnerved with the situation, and so when we got to Rasler Run, I insisted on hiking up to find Mike. Also at that moment, Mother Nature chimed in with her interesting twist: a snowstorm.

And so I spent the next 90 minutes (wild guess here; no watches in the group) hiking up and down Rasler on both sides trying to locate Mike. Blowing my whistle and shouting was unsuccessful as I crawled on all fours against the cold ground through thick rhododendron. Grease Fire waited at the confluence and eventually huddled under a thick patch of rhododendron to stay warm. Art and Jason hiked up Rasler with their boats for about ¾ of a mile and paddled the class 5 creek back down. When we reunited at the small creek's end, we decided that the situation was now urgent enough to make our main priority getting to Mike. And, he had to be somewhere between Rasler and the put in, an area we were now unable to adequately search because we were downstream of it.

The beauty of shoving our kayaks back into Indian Creek with big, heavy flakes dropping was barely noticed as we all pushed on. As we approached AW-rated class 5 Terminator rapid, I bowed to the River Gods and asked for kindness. We scouted, and all ran the big Upper Gauley-esque wavetrain with no issues. In a rapid below that, Rob was surfed sideways into a big hole. As we all reacted by turning around to help, Jason was closest to him. Rob wrestled with the hydraulic for a 20-second ride, was flipped, and then surfed himself out the side of the ugly hole. Upon reaching Jason, he sternly said, "We don't have time for a swimmer." Cue up that theme music one more time.
The day was clearly getting late when we reach the mighty Yough. Looking more like the Ohio, the river was more than 100 yards wide and the wind was whipping whitecaps into showers of spray. A plan was initiated, though I think that it was probably slightly different in each of our heads. In mine, it was as follows. I would paddle hard with keys to one of the take out vehicles, warm it up and get changed into dry clothes. That would allow me to load boats onto the roofs while the others changed and warmed up. Once we were ready to move, one car would go straight to the put in vehicle, hoping to find Mike there. The other car, equipped with a Gazetteer, would take a detour and explore the back roads on the upstream side of Rasler Run, hoping to find Mike there. We'd meet at the put-in car, where there was food, and if we didn't have Mike with us by then, one car would stay there and wait while the other drove to the Fire Department in Ohiopyle (about 5 miles away) to get help. It was very cold out and the snow was piling up. Mike would not make it through the night if he was in the woods in all of his wet paddling gear. I was concerned to the point that I'd accepted the necessity of spending whatever money was necessary to get the four of us geared up to hike into the woods for many hours in these conditions at night. I was putting together a mental list of gear for each of the four of us: headlamp, extra batteries, sturdy boots, outerwear, thermos with hot tea, food, blankets, etc.

It was only a week ago that a few acquaintances had been lost in the woods of the Otter Creek Wilderness in West Virginia after an unsuccessful attempted first "complete" descent of Moore Run. There were only two of them and one spent the night in the woods after suffering a broken nose and serious lacerations on his face, both of which occurred during a bad swim after the two men had separated from each other on the river. It all turned out well, but the night was in the low 40's and it was dry. With the weather into which I was now paddling, the situation that I was now envisioning was potentially deadly for Mike.

Mike's solo landborne experience was not psychologically dissimilar from ours, and he made all the right decisions. Upon reaching Rasler Run, he discounted getting in his boat or attempting to wade across. Rather, he remembered us showing him a secondary road that goes to its put in. So, he quickly and smartly diverted his downstream journey along Indian Creek into an upstream journey along Rasler Run. Ducking the thick rhododendron underbrush on all fours in the snow, Mike dragged his heavy kayak behind him for what mush have seemed like an eternity. We could have been separated by only a few hundred yards at that time and wouldn't have known it. The heavy load undoubtedly kept Mike working hard enough that he was warm, but that also meant that he was expending a lot of energy he would need if he was stuck overnight. But, he didn't need it, because there was NO WAY he was getting stuck overnight; it would be fatal. Mike soldiered on to a backroad, and in his own words, knew that he would be fine. He picked up his boat and followed the road uphill out of the creek's drainage region. Miles later, exhausted, he got to the main road, Rt. 381, dropped his boat in a ditch, and earned his new nickname: Hitch. His approximation of the time spent hitch hiking is 90 minutes. It was now in the 20's, approaching darkness, and the snow was creating near whiteout conditions. Mike must have been equally as afraid of a car sliding into him as he was of one never stopping for him. When he was finally picked up, he had no idea where to go. As a new paddler who lives 4 hours from this area, he is not familiar with the region. After he and the driver quizzed each other on nearby towns and waterways, the conclusion was drawn that he would find us at out take out near the Rod & Gun Club in Connellsville. The man drove him out of his way for more than ten miles through the big storm. Insert divine intervention reference here.

And so another epic day on the river came to a shivering end, with the five of us screaming and hugging, celebrating there on the side of the Yough just upstream of Connellsvile. Ice coated all of our skirts, helmets, and life jackets. Mike was now cold enough to be going into high frequency vibration. Cars were started, warmth returned, and the long, slippery drive home began. Ironically, the question "Got Boof?", had it been posed to Mike before launching into Indian Creek and pondered seriously, would have radically changed the course of the day.

XXX in MMVII

On Sunday, December 9th I paddled to the confluence of class 4 Teter's Creek and the flooding Tygart River in Barbour County. I waited for the crew with whom I had been boating to assemble, slogged through marshy grass while carrying my kayak from the creek bed past the piers of an abandoned railroad bridge and up a steep embankment strewn with bottles, television sets, and appliances, and dropped the heavy boat at my car. It was cold and soggy and the puddles around my car were deep and muddy, but I had just paddled two amazing and intense creeks, the second of which was a milestone. Despite the muggy day, I was even happier than I typically am in this scenario because I had completed a goal that I had set when I realized that I was pacing rapidly through new runs at some time around the Webster Spring Wildwater Festival in March. My goal of paddling 30 new runs in 2007 had been realized.

Like every other exploratory goal, my little, adventurous goal provokes controversy.

First, paddling Little Sandy Creek into Upper Big Sandy Creek counts for two according to AW. But, I'll need to get in one more new run before the end of the month to simply satisfy my own self-skepticism. Two runs, Rasler Run and the Rapidan River, are seldom run and so they are not official AW reaches. Rasler definitely makes the list (see www.got-boof.com for trip reports from both Rasler and Laurel/Teter's) but the Rapidan was a very small flooded stream with little gradient. So, if I want to be a snob about it, I need to replace the Middle Yough and the Rapidan with some more bona fide whitewater. The goal will hopefully be solidified in the next few weeks with two more good runs.

And, it just rained a lot.

Here they are, organized by state.

2007-1	MD	Savage	Merrill - Lake (Upper)
2007-2	MD	Savage	Lower
2007-3	MD	Yough	Upper
2007-4	MD	Yough	Top
2007-5	NY	Hudson	Gorge
2007-6	PA	Casselman	Markleton - Fort Hill
2007-7	PA	Laurel Hill Creek	Whipkey Dam - Footbridge
2007-8	PA	Rasler Run	To Indian Creek
2007-9	PA	Shade Creek	To Stonycreek River
2007-10	PA	Slippery Rock Creek	Eckert - Harris (Lower gorge)
2007-11	PA	Stonycreek	Canyon
2007-12	PA	Stonycreek	Upper Gorge
2007-13	PA	Stonycreek	Lower
2007-14	PA	Yough	Middle
2007-15	PA	Meadow Run	Dinnerbell Rd - Ohiopyle
2007-16	VA	Rapidan	Rt. 231 - Rt. 29
2007-17	WV	Big Sandy	Little Sandy - Rockville (Upper)
2007-18	WV	Potomac, South Branch	Smokehole section
2007-19	WV	Gauley	Upper
2007-20	WV	Gauley	Middle
2007-21	WV	Gauley	Lower
2007-22	WV	Big Sandy	Lower
2007-23	WV	Cheat	Canyon
2007-24	WV	Elk, Back Fork	from Sugar Creek
2007-25	WV	Little Sandy	Rt. 26 - Big Sandy
2007-26	WV	Meadow	Upper
2007-27	WV	Stony	Dam - Rt. 50
2007-28	WV	Potomac, North Branch	Bloomingon
2007-29	WV	Laurel Creek	into Tygart
2007-30	WV	Teter's Creek	into Tygart

Note: Since writing the non-italicized text of this post, I have paddled two new rivers, Fike Run (PA) and Indian Creek (PA). So, I figure I've got that going for me, and I definitely hit the big three-oh.

Having a prolific year like this under my belt, I begin to feel like I'm actually worth my salt as a whitewater boater and that Life in West Virginia is good. This may or may not be the case, but if most definitely feels that way when I'm on my way to the river and the skies are dousing the watersheds.

Git 'r Dun.

Winter's Arrival

There are few things as pleasant as paddling whitewater in a snow storm. Uniquely pleasant, that is, in its simultaneous purity and complexity. At a glance from a calm eddy below the notorious Big Splat rapid, I stopped to witness the slow, downward drift of a million big, fat snowflakes, the thunderous waters of the Big Sandy chew away rock at a geologic pace, and a hundred mile wide cloud mass expose the sun to me through a tiny hole. I admit that I chuckled aloud in amazement.

And only two other people were there witnessing it all with me.

But I couldn't hear them.

Because the roar of whitewater is too loud.

And that damn rubber hat I have to wear was sealed over my ears.

I nearly missed this opportunity to experience the first day that Mother Nature showed us her cold side. With a big rain on Sunday night and steady snow throughout the day Monday, Tuesday shaped up to have a lot to offer. Thankfully, two paddlers from the DC area, Tyler and Matt, responded to message board posts. Neither had run this section of Big Sandy Creek before, and it is on every class 4 boater's list. If I had to rank the best types of experiences on whitewater, introducing a boater to a new river to run is just below being introduced to a new run. But, if the river is one of my own favorites, we can call it even.

According to the ultra-precise thermometer on my dashboard, it was 24 degrees when we parked the car at the put in. This was after more than an hour of driving to drop the shuttle vehicle at the take out thanks to the snowy, rough roads of Preston County, WV. I was told by Charlie Walbridge last week that the quickest way from Masontown to Bruceton Mills is through Jenkinsburg. This may sound perfectly normal to most, but Jenkinsburg is not a town and the road through it is more than 8 miles of rocky, muddy (and snowy today) switchbacks. We made it without a single slip.

Just as modern vehicles can be designed to tackle these roads, modern paddling apparel has been designed to keep out the cold. Never mind the fact that it takes a full 30 minutes to buckle, strap, and zip it on; it works. And so, Matt, Tyler and I put onto the river just under the bridge at Rockville (also not a town). And, I was responsible for getting them the appropriate information to successfully navigate the river. I am proud to say that I am apparently good at transferring this information, because when the information was given, all the right moves were executed. Strangely, both of them styled the line at Zoom Flume rapid, a line I have yet to style myself. All theory, no practice

One swim occurred and it was not in one of the major rapids. And, like I said, the gear works.

Reaching the take out point where the wild waters of the Big Sandy are injected into the wonderful Cheat River, a breath of relief accompanied each of our sighs of awe. This place is awesome.

Check out the photos.

Git r Dun.

Rockville to Jenkinsburg

It was Jeremy's idea.

On Monday, after he was characteristically late arriving to start an already rushed adventure, Molly and I joined him for a late night drive to drop a vehicle off in Jenkinsburg, where Big Sandy Creek meets the Cheat River. After that, we drove in a second vehicle to Rockville. It was past 11 pm when we finally got the the beginning of our trip, which would last only about 13 hours. And, it was was a seriously concentrated 13 hours.

To whitewater paddlers, Jenkinsburg is a familiar place because it is the take out point for these two classic runs and Rockville is a popular put in. And, though Rockville and Jenkinsburg may have the sound of established towns on some main road, perhaps with a few residents or businesses, they are not. As is the case with many places in Appalachia where the coal industry temporarily created a small community, the only evidence of civilization in both of these "towns" are old dirt and gravel covered mountain roads, a bridge, and a few misleading specs on the dated USGS map of the area. If you ask Google Maps for either town, you get rubbish for Jenkinsburg and a random point about five miles away for Rockville. Given the nature of our journey, this is poetry.

They were calling for rain. That's why we felt a bit rushed as we left the car to start the walk to Wonderfalls. We packed light for one night in the woods and only one substantial meal, so it didn't take us long to hit the trail. That is, it wouldn't have taken us long. However, Allegheny Wood Products, the owner of the forest (aka, timber) that is currently holding the ground together, has taken the first 3/4 of our trail and widened it into a road for its heavy machinery. We begrudgingly began to walk down this road in the trail's stead.

As if slogging down a 30 foot wide road of gravel-laced mud several inches thick wasn't miserable enough, the sight of large earth-moving, tree-digging vehicles brought our initial spirits to a minimum.

But, Jeremy got to drive the bulldozer (lemonade!).

With the road-making equipment behind us, our unseasonably warm night hike into Wonderfalls became much more enjoyable. We mindfully scoped out a place to pitch our tent that would hopefully be void of runoff from the predicted showers, eventually settling for a tree-covered spot about 50 feet above the falls and just off the riverbank. We were very glad to find that the tent held out all of the water because the showers most definitely materialized. A quick breakfast and coffee in the morning mountain fog got us rearing to move. So, we did.

Given that we were technically trespassing on our adventure, there were no trails. Navigation would instead be guided by a network of overgrown, long forgotten logging roads, the creek's deep canyon, and, ultimately, the far off sight of Cheat Canyon's steep walls that were blue with mountain haze.

We pushed through waist-high underbrush, wrestled our way through complicated ruins of downed trees, and scaled up and down loose, rocky sections of the canyon, all the while knowing that the car at the end of our journey was across the creek and there was no bridge. At some point, we'd be faced with finding a crossing. Secretly, I think that it was precisely this prospect that initially attracted both me and Jeremy to this trip.

After a few hours of travel, from a point high above the creek, we came to the decision that it was time to cross. As if we actually knew what we were doing, after descending into the canyon we arrived at the creek exactly where we'd hope we would. A bridge once crossed Big Sandy Creek here and three of the concrete supports are still there. This meant that had we crossed any further down the canyon, we'd have to ascend the steep walls to get to an old road bed and had we crossed further up the canyon, we'd have had to boulder-hop on the other side of the creek until we came to this point. It could not have been planned more effectively, with strong sarcasm underlying plan.

Crossing the creek was the trip's major obstacle. After over an hour of effort, our party of three adults and our three heavy packs had made it across, our lower extremities spending minimal time in the water. It was a game of Twister played in the roar of mild whitewater, shouting commands and encouragement to each other the entire time. The creek is about 25 feet wide where we crossed, and the boulders and shallow sections required about 5 or 6 moves and two or three of them were really tricky.

Allright. Put your right knee here on this rock and let your right foot dangle into the water until you find the rock to stand on. It's about 8 inches down. Okay, can you take your left arm and reach way out to grab that far rock? Nice! Now, reach across the deep part with your left leg and stand up on the rock that's just beneath the surface of the water. Watch it; that rock's slippery! Take your time! Nice work. Now, grab that first pack and toss it to me. Ready? Okay, on three; one, two, THREE! Good throw! Okay. I'm going to jump to that rock. Will you be able to grab me if I lose my balance?

I consider that creek crossing to be what made our trip down the Big Sandy epic. I've had one other truly epic hike in my life and it occurred in Shenandoah National Park, but that's not in West Virginia.

Once across the creek, it was about a mile and a half down the well-worn old road. Downed trees and evidence of landslides got in our way at a few times, but the elation of completing the journey was realized as soon as we were safely looking back nostalgically at our hairy crossing. Continuing, we knew we were near the car and in the vicinity of a swimming hole of overwhelming local popularity when we passed a very peculiar sign .

We got to the car reeking heavily of accomplishment. A man and woman sat on the tailgate of their pickup in Jenkinsburg drinking Natural Light. He asked us if we'd seen any wildlife. No, we told him, unfortunately it was an uneventful hike from Rockville. He asked us why in the world we walked that far through the woods, and I didn't tell him that it was because people like him don't. He told us to stick around and he'd show us some of the wildlife we failed to encounter. But, I had to get to work.

Enjoy the photos.

Git 'r dun.