EDIT: I started writing this on Thursday night. It's now early Tuesday morning. I disappeared Friday-Sunday for more boating as the water was good, and Chris Kyle was down visiting and he had just bought a new Pyranha Karnali, so of course we had to break it in.
Monday, March 7th
As I drove back from Mill Creek, Henry and James left UVM to pick Joey up in Massachusetts to begin their long drive to Morgantown. I'd like to say the drives went smoothly for both parties, but I'd be lying. I had a nice wintry mix to drive through from Fayetteville and those guys got stuck on I-80 in PA because of a blizzard. But alas, Monday morning they made it to Morgantown and we promptly drove them up to Ohiopyle to fire up Meadow Run. Afterwards, we grabbed some food at Curt's Family Restaurant on our way back to Morgantown for the night.
The crew below The Cascades
Joey promises he will
Especially after backflipping into the rock at 7 Foot Falls
At least he wasn't the only one...
Tuesday, March 8th
Having class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays limits me on the amount of boating that I am able to do. On this day, I stayed back to catch up on some work while Matt met up with his dad, and took the Bad News boys down the Middle Fork. All went pretty well, that day, and since I wasn't there, I don't have any pics to share.
Wednesday, March 9th
Another day where I couldn't paddle, but with plentiful water, the crew headed down to run Laurel Creek, another tributary of the mighty Tygart! I was quite jealous since I have yet to run it myself, but everyone enjoyed themselves, despite two swims and a cracked helmet.!
Thursday, March 10th
Finally, class for me is over for the week, and I have the opportunity to do some boating! Today we did what I'm going to call the Tri-state Trifecta, in which we hit creeks in PA, WV, and MD all in the same day. Much like our President's Day weekend, we go on Fike Run, followed by Muddy Creek, and for dessert, we headed to Friendsville for Bear Creek! By the end of the day, everyone was pretty exhausted, we had a swim in the Room of Doom on Fikes, and the same person broke their paddle on Bear Creek. Which speaking of Bear Creek, was running at 710 cfs yesterday, and was quite the rocket ride. I had run it at 500 cfs this past December, but the remainder of the group had never seen it before or had seen it with half of the flow. I'd take a guess and say that it took about 12 minutes from put-in to take out to run that 2 mile section of creek. Tons of wave trains, holes, a few slots, slides, and boofs mixed in....it is awesome!! If you're in the area and it's running (i.e. you don't want to run the UY at 3+ feet) you really should check it out, especially if you like the Savage.
Friday, March 11th
With Chris in town, and wanting to try out his new Karnali, I met up with him and Clark after my class ended for two laps on Fikes and a lap on Muddy. Chris's once shiny, smooth new Karnali is now covered with lots of scratches and what not. We had a blast, the water level was perfect for both runs, and it got us jonesing for more on the weekend.
Saturday, March 12th
Katie had hit me up while we hung out at Clark's place and ate the Green Machine's delicious lasagna about the level for Fikes for the morning. Our messages kinda went like this:
Katie: What do you think Fike's will be tomorrow?So I picked Katie up, and we all met at Clark's house. Laura drove in from Pittsburgh, Nik drove in from DC, and we met with Clark, Chris, and Jack to head to Ohiopyle. The level was a great first timer run, since Chris, Jack, and Katie were all newbies to the run. For the first time in a long time, I may have been the person in the group with the most number of runs on Meadow. Despite the fact Laura guided me down last month, I've been getting on it a bunch lately. The level was great, everyone did very well, and I shot some video of our second lap at Cascades and 7 Foot Falls....even got some carnage!
Radley: Fike's was at a foot earlier today, and holding steady. Meadow should be perfect.
Katie: I think I'm ready for Meadow.
Radley: Good, I'll pick you up at 9.
Didn't get the chance to take many pictures, but I got a few at the take-out.
Chris in his shiny new Karnali
Laura and Jack coming to the last chance eddy
After running the second lap on Meadow, Clark, Laura, and Nik headed down for a Loop run at 7' and the rest of us grabbed the cars to get ready to head to Indian Creek. Jack sat this one out has he was feeling tired, and picked us up at the end of the day in Connellsville.
Indian Creek was an adventure to say the least. It started with a hike in...
We hiked from Rt. 381 just north of Ohiopyle down a powerline right of way to below the Mill Run Reservoir. After hiking in, we put on to a what seemed to be a very beefy flow for Indian Creek. Why it's called Indian Creek, I do not know because it was bigger than many rivers I have been on in the past. The flow was conducive to big wave trains, and even bigger holes. Nik had shred it before with Wilderness Voyagers, and Clark had run it before as well. However, we weren't really expecting what came at us at the first drop.
What looked to be a junky 5 foot ledge gave half of the group more than we had bargained for! Nik when first, and ran a very clean line down the left skirting the only hole on the river that Clark knew existed. Like I said before, this was a pretty beefy level we ran it at compared to what we were expecting and that hole was not to be messed with. Unfortunately, Katie met the hole dead on and spend a good 14 seconds getting tossed around. Clark, who was behind her sacrificed himself to try to punch her out of the hole. It didn't work, and Clark ended up in the hole as well. And then there was me...last boat in the group. As I dropped over the horizon line and through the first small hole, I see Clark, and only Clark, side-surfing the hole. Next thing I know, Katie's boat pops out from nowhere and I begin to drive straight towards it. Unlike Clark's attempt, I am successful in knocking Katie, and possibly Clark, out from the giant hole. Of course, slamming directly into Katie's boat killed my momentum and I had to sacrifice myself for them. I fortunately only spent 7 seconds in the hole, and emerged from it still in my boat to see Katie and Clark both swimming. After gathering all the gear together, Katie walked off and the group was cut down to 5.
The rest of the run went without issue, Chris and I had awesome boof's off a sweet 6 foot ledge and we all ran Terminator cleanly to finish off the run. However, I forgot my throwbag on a rock at the bottom of Terminator where I set safety. At the confluence with the Yough, we had a tiring 5 mile flatwater paddle down to town. At the take out, Jack met us with snacks and we headed back to Clark's for some pizza and relaxing. We all ended up passing out at Clark's house, I carless because Katie headed back to Mo'town with the River Princess, and shoeless, because they were in the car.
Chris boofing his new Karnali
Laura in Terminator, a class "V"
Clark and Chris coming down through Terminator
Chris at the take-out. He is a very happy Karnali owner!
Sunday, March 13th
Waking up on Clark's floor, I see that it is 10AM. I slept like a log the night before, and with Daylight Savings Time kicking in, lost an hour of sleep. After 3 straight days of hard paddling, I was hoping to take it easy and just run the Upper Big Sandy. However, with the group feeling good and some pushing for something more, we decided to run the Lower instead. With the water still holding pretty well, Chris's PFD down the LBS was going to be at 6.7', a very respectable level. The previous week, we had run it at 5.7' which come to find out is half the flow volume of a foot higher. The waves were bigger, the holes were bigger, and being worn down from past days of paddling, I took some sneaks and used my walking legs to get down the river without incident on this day. There is no shame in walking a rapid you usually run, especially when ass-kicking 16 foot tall waterfall beatdowns are a good possibility due to the increased volume of water. Nik was the only one to run Wonder Falls that day, we all snuck down the right side of Little Splat, and everyone walked around his big brother. At Zoom Flume, we all ran the line I've been wanting to run, the far left boof line, which is a lot of fun. Not to say the left side was any better, as I had a very close call with a tree that day .Clark and Laura were the only two to run 1st Island, which got the best of Clark.
6.7' was the highest I think all of us had run the Big Sandy before, and given more energy, I would have probably run the normal lines on a lot of the rapids that I snuck or walked. All in all, it was a great day, Chris did fantastically for his first time down a very pushy Big Sandy. And at the end of the day, we all went our separate ways, except for Chris and I who pit stopped at Mountain State Brewing Co. in Morgantown for a bite to eat before retrieving the River Princess from Katie's house.
To cap it all off, it has been a great last few days. I'm finally catching up on everything else that needs to be done, and it feels good to almost be on spring break where I head home for the Tohickon Release Weekend and spend some time working on my thesis proposal. As tempting as it is to go kayaking this week, my poor body can't handle it anymore. Although all of this paddling has helped me shed a few pounds! That also means I need to get more foam for the boats. Anyways, that's about it, and here's the video.
The carnage video will be coming shortly!
SYOTR,
Radley
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