The Upper Gauley went so well the week before we figured to go back for some more on Sunday.  It was a beautiful weekend, especially for so late in Gauley season.  Jason was meeting Darren and I at Battle Run Sunday morning, and Bree was going to complete our murderer’s row. Jason, Bree, Darren and Me-a 60’s folk band and a group of intrepid paddlers all wrapped up in one. 

We Are Team Slacker! So we didn’t really get on the river until 12:30ish, shortly before the dam’s turned off.   It was 75 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and confidence was high.

Jason was following up a spectacular performance from last weekend-laying down perfect lines for us neophytes to follow. This was my fifth run on the UG. Darren and Bree were both doing second descents, and Jason was our voice of experience. He was trying to be too perfect in some warm-up rapids, and he and Bree rolled a couple times. No consequences, but I could tell Bree wasn’t feeling well.  Darren and I were warming up fine.

We got down to a rapid or two before Insignificant.  Nothing major, I was doing fine through it, when I got knocked off balance by a f-you rock and saw a big pourover in front of me.  I could’ve gone left. I could’ve gone right.  But I decided to try to boof it. I don’t know my thought process. Underneath is a grabby hole that they surf rafts in.  I flipped in it and it held me for what I thought was an unreasonable amount of time.  I was reaching out into the green water but my paddle just wasn’t biting. I thought it was a strange hole, indeed.  Eventually it let me out, but I missed my first roll up.  No bite again.  I rolled up a second ugly time, with a couple of braces to regain verticality.  That’s when I noticed that half my paddle blade had snapped off. 

I am a Member In Good Standing of Team Slacker, so of course I have no breakdown paddle. (At this point, I don’t have any paddle!)  Jason had hand paddles, but I’m not comfortable enough for hand-paddles on the UG.  Watching my carnage fest must have moved Bree, because she decided she’d hike out at Pillow Rock up to Carnifex Ferry. I could use her paddle then.  So I just had to run Insignificant with one and half blades.  I turned my paddle over so I could use the intact blade on my right-hand side, so I could roll if nothing else.  I remember Mary Smith ran the Lower New with a half a paddle once when Bob D. busted his paddle in half at Lower Keeney.  I decide to take off the skirt (not literally; I left my sprayskirt on) and get it done.

Insignificant???

Insignificant is a big, long rapid. It hides its holes well. We depart river center well enough, Jason, Bree, Darren, and me in order.  I followed Jason’s lead and the line, when you’re on it, isn’t bad.  Jason and Bree descended river left and seemed to be in good shape. Then I saw Darren fall off the river.  The tail of his Diesel flipped out of site and I knew he’d found the middle hole. 

If you haven’t visited the middle hole in Insignificant, well, you might want to keep it that way.  It’s a steep, uniform wave that probably runs 10 or 15 yards wide. It looks a little like Five Boat on Kuntz’s Flume, but it probably stands about twice as high.  It’s easy to miss seeing from above, as it presents as a horizon line late, with a lot of push to get you there.  I, of course, was boogying hard to get river left of where Darren dropped off.  I managed to reach the shoulder of the hole as I watched D-dog get all rodeo in there.  He flipped up and surfed. He flipped down and surfed. He was right in the middle of the hole and I didn’t think he was going to make it out with his boat.  I tried to watch D from downstream, but I had to focus on the rapid, too.  I heard Darren shout so I figured he was swimming. I would’ve loved to help him. Really, I would’ve.  But I couldn’t get up to him, I was right in the middle of the flow with nary an eddy in site, and was having troubles of my own, pushing towards the big right rock at the bottom. 

Darren’s swim was epic.  That is a long, steep rapid to swim half of.  There are a lot of undercuts on both sides of the rivers.  D did a good job of staying in the current and eventually eddying out, while Jason and I retrieved and emptied his boat.  D said he had whacked his ass and leg on a rock on the swim and that he wasn’t very comfortable.  So we decided to paddle down to Pillow and see what’s up.

Once there, Darren and Bree decided that they’d rather brave the hike up the hill of tears than paddle any further.  Evidently, it’s vertical, scraggy, and took them about two hours of painful portaging to arrive at the top.  Jason and I foraged on.

I had a nice run on Pillow-I just have to work on my splat move.  We ran Lost Paddle on the right, with me on a huge f-no I’m not flipping brace through 2^nd drop.  Both Jason and I rolled somewhere in there, but inconsequentially.  We were flying down the river.

Iron Ring

I’ve never had too much problem with Iron Ring; you run it, you flip in the second wave, roll up, keep paddling.  So when Jason asked whether I wanted to scout or just run it, I said let’s do it.

I guess we started too far right.  I hit the first hole and it stern-squirted me river left hard. I was bracing to stay upright and I thought, OK.  Then my stern caught on a rock and I flipped. I had no idea how far left I had surfed, because my next vision was going over that nasty pourover on the river left upside down and backward.  Ouch.  I rolled up (it wasn’t a keeper, anyway) and checked for dismemberment.  I tweaked my right shoulder but otherwise wasn’t too messed up.

You always know it’s a bad run when strangers come up and ask if you’re OK. Then they usually say something like, “I’ve never seen anybody do anything that damned stupid before”.  Well, agreed. I didn’t like my line either.

The rest of the run was fairly uneventful. We both ran Sweet’s clean.  Jason had a nice meltdown on Julie’s Juicer as we paddled down to Wood’s Ferry.     

I think the moral of this story is that while the UG is within paddling limits and pretty manageable when you’re on line, it surely punishes the off-line paddler.  It’s a river where I, at least, have to be on my game and concentrating in order to run fairly smoothly.  The consequences of missing a line in some places are just brutal.

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I went to the doctor and got some cortisone for my shoulder, he’s guessing a sprained rotator cuff and 3 weeks before it’s better. Not bad, and I can use my arm low so I can play hockey and bike ride. I gotta get a new paddle, and I promised the dr. not to paddle this weekend (the cortisone masks any pain, so I could really rip it up), so I’m taking the last week off of Gauley season.  No word yet on D-man’s posterior and leg. We can only hope it doesn’t slow him at the discotheque.   

No doubt about it, 2008 was the most fun Gauley season I’ve had. Beautiful weather the whole time, meeting lots of new folks, partying hardy, getting better at paddling. I had a couple good surfs on Hell Hole, a nice run on Pillow, and three clean runs on the LG (I never have clean runs!)  As Jason says,  I don’t GOTTA buy a new paddle, I GET to buy a new paddle. And after paddling the Diesel 75, I have a hankering for a new boat. I love the way that baby surfs big holes, like the one in Insignificant. I’m going to work on better control and turning over the spring and next paddling year.  I look forward to ripping up Iron Ring next Gauley season, if not sooner

Syotr!

-Andrew