Weekend Recap

I Another wonderful weekend has come and gone here in West Virginia.  Most recently we were blessed with unseasonably warm temperatures, which of course caused the snow to melt and the rivers to rise.  These perfect conditions led us to do what we always do, and that is kayak.  Like the last one, I'll just break it down by day since thats the best way I can think of doing it.

Thursday February 17th

Thursday was an easy day, in the 60s where I traveled to Ohiopyle to run the Loop with my friend Chris Kyle as the river started to rise from the melt.  Chris hadn't had the chance to boat in Gauley Fest, and since he had a lot in store for him this weekend, it was a great time to warm up and shake off the rust.  We hit it at 3.1' which was a great level, and a reminder to me that my playboat is not as forgiving as my creek boat.  The high that day was somewhere in the mid 60s, and I started to get heat exhaustion hiking out from Railroad in my drysuit it was so warm.  

Chris at the Loop Take Out

I kid you not, it was that warm that day.

That day, I also tried using my GoPro Hero HD helmet cam to record the run.  However, I am still learning how to use it, and I didn't manage to record anything from the run.  Thursday night, I did my normal routine of going to the pool session, except this one had a meeting.  The WVU Whitewater Club members in attendance voted unanimously for me to become the next president of the club.  I'm going to have my hands for sorting things out with it, but I'm looking forward to it and I've got a feeling it's going work out well.

Friday, February 18th

The morning was filled with giving a practice presentation of my NERR project to my seminar class.  The afternoon was filled with class IV-V creeking, followed by dinner and beers at the Brew Pub.

After my class ended, Chris Heim met me at the house, picked up Katie Berry, and we headed up to Ohiopyle to meet up with Matt Bernstein, who had just finished running Drakes.  The plan was to run either Meadow or Fikes, and as we got closer to meeting up, the plan was set to run Meadow.  The weather again today was beautiful, in the mid '60s, and I opted out of my drysuit for a more comfortable pair of guide shorts and a dry top, and even in that I was warm.  Upon arriving at the put-it, the level was 1.5', a full foot higher than when Matt and I ran it two weeks ago with Laura.  While some people run it higher, 1.5' was a full on, pushy, steep, continuous creek, and probably the hardest thing I have run to date.  That being said, it was a ton of fun and the run went without incident, except for the time ice from the "Ampitheter" a really cool rock formation on the left after 7 Foot Falls decided to drop huge ice chunks at us from 30+ feet.

Matt running the Meadow Slide

Getting iced after 7 Foot Falls

After hitting Meadow Run, Matt and Katie grabbed food on Rt. 40 and Chris and I took one for the team and went to get visuals on some of the creeks in the Cheat watershed. We found that Muddy, Daugherty, and the Sandy were all pumping as we drove down 26.  We drove the rest of the way back to Morgantown, passed the Cheat which was already over 5 feet, and looked at Deckers from the road, and made browns in our pants just looking at the drops.  Chris jetted off to celebrate his girlfriend Liz's birthday (the wonderful photographer from Toyota Falls) and the rest of us went back to our houses.  We later met up at the Brew Pub for more food and beer, all the while, organizing a plan for the next day of boating.

Saturday, February 19th

Matt, Katie, Chris, and I decided that before we met with the rest of the group, that we would dawn patrol Fikes before the rest of the crew met us at 11am.  First of all, Fikes is just a few, and I mean only a few, minutes outside of Bruceton Mills.  Second of all, it is freaking awesome.  We met up with Chris's friend Matt Sloan from Frostburg and we put on.  Also, shuttle is very short and simple, this is a must do run if you're in the area and it's running.  To check if it is running, there are two rocks at the take out.  The flat rock being covered means good to go.  The more water on the baseball rock in the center, the pushier, and you are in for a ride if the baseball rock is covered.  Also, there is a nice spray painted gauge on a rock there too.  We ran it at 1' on the gauge.  None of us had run the river before, except for Sloan, and that was a while ago.  All in all, the run went pretty well, except for a broken paddle in the Room of Doom which resulted in a swim, a pinned boat, and Matt paddling the rest of the river with Chris's broken paddle.

Katie and Chris at the put-in:

Sloan getting ready to sneak Hubbard's Cupboard, a very dangerous slot with high pinning potential.  When you see the pyramid rock, go left and bang down the sneak or walk around it on the left.

A view of Hubbard's Cupboard from downstream after the sneak.  Yea, it's nasty.

Collateral damage from the Room of Doom

After we finished running Fikes, we hurried to Bruceton Mills as we were over half an hour late to meet Mike Maloney and Brett Ciccotelli who drove down from Pittsburgh and Nik White who drove out from DC to meet us.  Unfortunately, Mike and Brett went to the wrong spot so us being late had no impact on the group.  Which was great, because I hate being late and impacting others.  Since they ended up in Albright instead of Bruceton Mills, we had them meet us half way at the put-in for the Muddy.  We boogied down the Muddy and had a great time, despite the AMD, although with the snowmelt it wasn't as bad as it could be.  

Katie and Mike at the put in

A very surprise Matt

Mike in front and Nik in the back on the first slide.

Nik punching the hole on the first slide, Matt in the back.

Matt and Chris coming down the slide.

The money shot, a DEMSHITZ approved brown by Chris

There were other browns of course, I tried to take nice picture of Matt and Katie, but Matt photobombed their own pic with the brown hand.

Baby brown by Brett, showing the big slide in the background.  No pictures of that one, just video.

Another one of Brett, nailing a random boof.

Matt with another boof and brown.

Just for fun, as I know they are great paddles but have a reputation of snapping around here, there are 7 intact Werners in the stacker......

After packing up at Teter's Campground, which is the takeout for the Muddy, we debated whether to do a highwater run on the Narrows or head back to Fikes or run over to Friendsville to run Bear Creek.  After checking the gauges, and me asserting my desire not to run any big water, we drove to Fikes.  In the middle of the caravan, Matt called my cell and said "Let's do Bear to mix it up" so we headed over to Friendsville.  Bear Creek is very similar to the Savage, with a few exceptions: it runs more often, there are less people on it, it's steeper, it's tighter, and the section we ran takes more time to run shuttle than it does to run the river.  It runs through Friendsville, drops 100 ft/mile, and it has some fantastic boofs and slides thrown into the boogie water for good measure.  We ran two laps on it, before calling it a day because we were all exhausted.  Only Mike and I had run Bear Creek once before, but it was Katie who led both laps.  She was paddling so fast in her Micro that I couldn't keep up with her in my Everest.

Heading towards the take out after an amazing day.

Brett and Nik bouncing through a wave train on the way to the takeout.

I didn't have the chance to take any pictures on Bear because we were moving so fast.  Nik shot helmet cam footage of the second lap, and we managed to run the whole two miles of the creek in 17 minutes!  After we go to the takeout, we loaded up and got changed so we could head back to Morgantown for some food.  A few of us grabbed dinner and brews at The Varsity Club, the closest place to eat from my house.  We hung out, relaxed, and then headed back to the apartment where Nik, Brett, and Mike crashed for the night with plans for the Lower Big Sandy in the morning.

Sunday, February 20th

We all woke up and headed to Bruceton Mills to meet up with John Quigley's North Fork of the Blackwater group from the day before to show them the easy way down to the put-in when the roads from the normal way are bad (which they were).  We got down there, got dressed, which at that point I had realized I forgot my union suit at the apartment but luckily Mike was generous enough to lend me some pants to wear.  We ran shuttle, which currently, the Cheat Canyon takeout road is in pretty good shape for February.  Our two groups split up and we headed down the river at a nice level of 6.35'.  Being pushier than it was on our last big group run, we did have a fair bit of carnage and a few swims, but it still ended up being a great day on the Sandy.

Katie dropping Wonder Falls

John styling Wonder Falls

Nik White nails his first run on Big Splat

Wood Report on 1st Island, there is a tree in the far right slot (far left in the picture) of 1st Island.  Gotta run the left side of the island until it is cleared.

Wood is also in the standard line of 1st Island, just underwater here at 6.35'.  Wood is in the center of the picture in the pour over.

After finishing our run, we loaded up, got changed and grab some grub, at the Mill Place.  A restaraunt/bar/hardware store in Bruceton Mills that is now becoming a habit of mind to visit after every Cheat or Sandy run.  The food is wonderful, it's quiet, the prices are fantastic, and if the special is pork chops with stuffing and mash potatoes, get it.

So that pretty much wraps up the whole weekend's adventures.  With more rain coming, we'll be busy next weekend too.  And of course, what you did all of this reading for:

Presidential Melt - On Vimeo

SYOTR,

Radley