An Epic Whitewater Farewell

What this past weekend held in store, as far as whitewater goes, was only fit for kings. Western Maryland and West Virginia used to be hidden whitewater gems that have since been exposed to the rest of tha paddling world....and that's just fine with me. Its too good not to share.

As I am nearing my departure date, my schedule is taking on the dreaded tunnel shape and my lucrative free time is coming to an end. The realization has mildly set in that I am not going to have the chance to paddle these great rivers for quite some time, so this past weekend had to be the great huck fest finale.

For those of you who dont know, fact #1, this area has been flooding for a solid month and a half. The Blackwater has been running at levels only navigable by Leprichauns (more than not) and the Yough Corridor has been every bit of a full Gauley release (and then some....like times 2).
The plan this weeekend was to paddle as much of these 2 watersheds as possible, and we did just that. Saturday we were Blackwater Bound with a trusty level 30 something-Night-Elf-Warrior escort, Mr. Russell Bounds. (If you have to ask, you weren't meant to know - ha ha).

Arriving at the rivers, the Upper Blackwater was still a bit out of the comfort range, pumping along at around 1000 cfs. The North Fork was the clear choice.

The North Fork of the Blackwater is, in my opinion, the most amazing steep creek in West Virginia...and I think most would agree. This monster drops 400 feet per mile with every single rapid being completely runnable at all levels. The creek even offers up a beautiful clean 30 footer about a third of the way down, aptly named Gludial Mash. There is also a marginally clean 40 footer at the put-in that is a good gauge for where your Skrum's location is!

Arriving at the creek, the level was perfect and we were ready to begin the laps. The crew: myself, Russell Bounds, Issac Levinson, Geoff Calhoun, Jason Beakes, Nathan Sass, Peter Lutter, Charlie Bartlett and Eric Chance. Issac, Eric and I arrived early and decided to put in a run before everyone got there. First of the crew to arrive next were Jason and Geoff so we busted out another run with DemShitz. FYI - each time you choose to lap the Blackwater, you will be hiking about 600 feet out of the Blackwater Canyon and another mile and a half back to the car. This ain't no phoney frachise.

After the second run, the rest of the crew arrived and were dancing around at the put-in like Barney and Friends. This was also going to be the virgin flight down the NF for Demkidz. Usually your a bit nervous taking someone down this creek for the first time, but these boys are about as solid as it gets, and our run with them was clean, hot, nasty, badd-a$$ fun.

After 3 runs down the North Fork my motivation to hike out of there again had dwindled, knowing that 6 more miles of runnable killer whitewater (aka. Lower Blackwater) was below us. Issac, Jason, Jeff, Eric and I choose to run the Lower B with tons of water down to Hendricks where Mr. Bounds would be awaiting. This was definently the call as the action on the lower B never lets you down.
Here is a quick account of the run:

• I somehow nailed myself in the nose with my paddle at Krakatoa shedding some nice blood :)
• The Slide had a Hawaii 5.0 wave much cooler than the one everyone has seen Steve Fisher surf on the Zambezi
• Chance got his a$$ kicked in one hole and swam in another. I think its cuz his glasses were frozen....literally
• We took off just at dark on the shortest day of the year.

With no major injuries and incidents is was a great day and we were heading home for the eve.
For Gauges, Flow Info and Shuttel Directions CLICK HERE.

Epic Whitewater Weekend Day 2:

Waking up to snow on the ground is always an interesting feeling when you know you're about to go kayaking. Yes it's pretty....but, damn, is it cold.

I woke up early knowing I had to run to my parent's house to help out with some chores. On my return, I called the crew to hear the day's decision....what I heard made my skrum shrivel. They wanted to paddle the Top Yough and the Upper Yough, without stopping in 25 degree weather. Mind you, this venture consists of 18 miles of paddling with about a 5 mile section of pure flatwater linking the two whitewater sections. I agreed without hesitation.

The flow for this venture was going to be awesome. Big, juicy, huge holes, giant waves, continuous rapids, tons of gradient.........and of course, completely frozen gear! Putting on the top we found the level to be somewhere near 1000cfs which opens up the sick boof (Big Brother) on river left at Swallow Falls. Just downstream at Swallow tail, the normal center line becomes a boof or die, because the hole is a juicy lowhead damn smiling away at you. ahhhh! My Dagger Green Boat had no trouble turing that smile into a frown. The rest of the run was full of face shots and continuous class V.

Next up was the 5 mile class I paddle to the upper yough. WE FROZE. Nuff Said. You could have beat me off a tree and i think the tree would lose. We needed some good whitewater to shed off this ice......we got it. The upper was ripping along at 3.3 ft. with about 2800CFS. This level on the Upper Yough is amazing. Every rapid becomes huuuuuge but super clean. After running the great rapids on the upper and floating down into Friendsville, I took a little time to myself to enjoy my last day on this River that I call home. Arriving in Friendsville we had about a quarter inch of ice covering our gear so we stopped off a Jim Field's house on the River to thaw out and enjoy a couple glasses of good red wine. The epic weekend was complete :) After doing a little math we successfully paddled:

• Over 4000ft of gradient
• 30 miles of river
• 12 hours on the water at below freezing temperatures
• the best the area had to offer this weekend

Gonna miss this place, but definently stoked to paddle many new rivers around the world.