Tuesday, March 1st:
Gotta start March off right of course, so the Tuesday Dawn Patrole crew comprised of Chris, Clark, and I fired up low water Fike Run before work and class for the day. Rodney was supposed to join us, but his power went out and his alarm did not go off. That night, Mark Campbell, Mark Maderic, and Jen Stoner drove out from PA/MD/DC points to hit the creeks for two days.
Clark Kent at the put in for Fikes.
Wednesday, February 2nd.
Homework and class, didn't have the chance to paddle. Did meet up with Chris, the Marks, and Jen at Ledo Pizza after they got back from their day of paddling. FYI, their pizza is greasy but pretty good, however, their cheesesteak ain't nuthin' like a Geno's Steak.
Thursday, February 3rd
Many of the smaller creeks had dropped out, the bigger rivers such as the Cheat and Yough were still running high, but lucking for us the Lower Big Sandy was running at 6.2' which is a perfect level for the Marks to run on their first time. The four of us met up in Morgantown, and headed over to the J-burg bridge to meet Rodney, who graciously agreed to lead the group down, as I was still a little uneasy about leading the group. We all geared up and headed to Rockville to put on the river.
If there is something to be said about me and the LBS, it is carnage. This run, and all previous runs had something in common, and that was carnage. My PFD involved a poor line on the approach to Wonder Falls and upside down experience with Little Splat. My second time down, I did fairly well, but Brenton took a nice beating in Wonder Falls and then the failed seal launch/pin incident occurred. The time after that, I got worked in one of the holes above Wonder Falls (as shown by John "Steepcreeker" Stephens helmetcam) then Brett and I both swam at Little Splat.... Well, this day was no different. While I managed to run pretty clean lines, with the exception of a failed rock splat after 2nd Island, we did have two swims at Wonder Falls, and then a swim out of a pin as one of the newbies got stuck in one of the many slots Rodney showed us how to run.
Rodney coming in for a landing on Wonder Falls.
Mark Campbell after his first successful Wonder Falls run.
Jen forgetting what region of the country she's in...remember kids, it may be cool to plug stuff in the Pacific Northwest, but in these parts, we BOOF!
Mark Maderic at the lip...plug aftermath as well.
Mark got lost too, forgot what region he was in....
The Poop Chute
Zume Flume - Rodney finishing as Jen enters.
Mark Campbell in the thick of it.
Rodney styling Big Splat in his cracked Greenboat.
The Marks checking out Big Splat and getting ready for the seal launch.
After finishing the LBS, I noticed that my left foot was wet. So, on the Meadow/Fikes day last weekend I put two small holes in the right bootie, and now there is a 1/2" cut in the bootie. I managed to patch them well enough to last me for a bit, but I know that they are going to need replacing before next year's winter season. I would recommend avoiding the NRS drysuits because they use latex booties instead of fabric booties. It isn't a bad drysuit, but the latex booties suck! Another tip, if you have a metal YKK drysuit zipper that gets stuck, try some Stonyboater Paddlewax, it works great on the drysuit as well as on the paddle!
Friday, March 4th
My every other Friday seminar is now actually every Friday, so after class ended we geared up Chris and I headed out to fire up the LBS again. Clark took an extended lunch break, and we met him and Blood at Rockville for a lap. While this trip had the potential to break the LBS Carnage Curse, we weren't over Wonder Falls yet and we already had a swim. Thankfully, it was a quick rescue and the paddler and boat were able to go over the falls together shortly thereafter. The level had dropped since yesterday, and the put-in gauge read 5.9' today which made for a great run. After Wonder Falls, we boogied down Undercut, Zoom Flume, and Clark and I ran a slot together on Little Splat. At it's big brother, we hopped out to take a look and everyone carried down to below the horseshoe. Only Blood and Chris (for his first time) fired up Big Splat, as Clark and I watched from above. Here is where the curse really kicked in, both lines were good in the sense that Chris and Blood made it out, but they did miss the line and plug causing Clark and I to utter many expletives. After seal launching back down, we continued on down the river without incident. I even managed to fire up the slot I missed out on yesterday because there was a paddler pinned in it that needed assistance.
At the take-out, we loaded up and headed back to the put-in to fetch the cars. Because of a failure to understand fuel consumption and a broken fuel level gauge, Nori was in need of a ride up as well. As we drove back up to Rockville, we had to stop several times because the bumpy roads had the boats moving around. It also gave us some time to hear more about the "Otter Creek Incident" from last week from someone else's perspective, and for Brian Bridgewater's recount, click here and Tommy "Full Gnarlz" Hagg's right here. It's also vibrated my spare tire a bit loose, and one of the nuts on my inverter completely off, which could have ended poorly had it touched the other lead.
After running shuttle, I did a sweet donut in the parking lot and headed up to The Mill Place with Chris for some after paddling grub. Starting soon, they'll be doing a Ribs and Wings special with an all you can eat salad and baked potato bar! After dinner, I dropped off Clark's wet clothes at his house and headed back to Mo'town to find out that the Mountain State Brewing Company brew pub opened tonight down the street from me.
So here I am not, waiting for some friends to get here from Pittsburgh so I can go to sleep. The goal is to run 3 laps on the LBS tomorrow and hopefully the 3 days in a row/3 laps in one day combination is strong enough to break the curse of the carnage. The last few days have taught me some things, and here they are:
- Carnage can occur at any moment, so always have a camera on you. If I had shot video the last two days, I would have a sweet carnage reel for the video.
- Never use a drysuit with latex booties, they tear very easily, but Elmers contact cement does a decent job for repairs, although they will need replacing in the near future.
- Everyone swims, and sometimes it's freaking hilarious.
I think that about covers it, but I had more in the brain while I was writing this. I got the Keen Gorge Boot for the rest of creeking season. I tried them out on the LBS today, and they are better than the Teva P-2s and Protons that I have used in the past, so we'll see how they last.
Looking like I may be heading to Fayetteville tomorrow night for an epic Sunday of creeking. This week is shaping up to be awesome, as the Bad News Boat Squad will be in town to fire up some WV creeks. So basically, with the rain on the way and proposal crunch time now, I'll be boating during the day and writing at night. May only get 1 day off in the next week and a half! Anyways, enough for now, and it's dawn patrole on the LBS tomorrow.
SYOTR!
Also, Nico Zegre is the man! He pulled the log out of 1st Island's slot!!!
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