Intermediate 2012 Trip Report

 Hi fellow paddlers,

  This past weekend, May 4-6, eleven RSCK paddlers traveled to West Virginia for the club "informal-non-sponsered" Intermediate Trip.

Friday May 4rth: Paul, Karen, Rich Cole, Dan Lehner, Joe Marincel and Andrew Wise all met at the fabulous Shoney's restaurant in Summersville, WV.  After a delicious breakfast, we decided to paddle the Upper Meadow river from Burdette creek to Russellville. For those unfamiliar, the Upper Meadow is a fun "creek-stlye" river with one 4.5 mile rapid filled with lots of eddies, slots, boulders, boofs, etc.   It was running a great level of 1200 cfs with room to go up if it kept raining.  We went to the take-out and loaded all of our boats, gear  and people into Dan's huge beast of a truck and then went to the put-in.  We put on around 11:30.  After hundreds of eddy turns, slots, a few boofs and some play, we were off the river at 3:45.  Rex Dalrymple and Jim McHale caught up to us mid-river.  It rained off and on most of the day but the sunshine came out in time for relaxing at the take-out while others went to pick up Dan's beast and Rex's vehicle.  The temperatures were in the upper 70's.

After paddling, we all enjoyed a good dinner at Diogi's Mexican restaurant in Fayetteville.  Good carnitas, fish tacos and microbrew beers.  After dinner, Jim, Rex, Karen and Paul went for a short hike near the New River visitor center on the Burntwood trail.  Rex and Jim then went to camp at Tailwaters, the rest of us camped at the Super 8 in Summersville.

Saturday May 5th:  The morning brought overcast skies, more rain and Lee Green, Paresh Patel and Alex Janke.  Many of our target rivers were now too high and more rain was predicted.  After breakfast at Fran's in Summersville, we elected to paddle the Lower Gauley which was running a fun 1900 cfs at Belva and headed up.  The Lower Gauley offers up multiple BIG rapids and BIG play waves in a 10.5 mile run.  We all went to the take-out at Swiss, got river ready and loaded 10 of the 11 boats into Dan's beast.  One stayed on top of Andrew's car only because it was already happy there.  The eleven of us piled into Dan's beast and Andrew's car and drove to the put-in at Bucklick branch (aka Koontz' put-in).  It rained off and on all day, temperatures reaching high 70's again and sunshine in the late afternoon.  We  were on the river by 11:15 and off at 4:45.  By the time we were off the river, the river had risen to 3460 cfs at Belva!  There was great play all the way down the river.  "Hollywood wave" at Diagonal ledges was in great form as were the surf waves just above.  Paul and Rich showed off "synchro-surfing" and switching sides of the wave, one surfing high, one surfing low to switch positions. Rich Cole had the surf of the day at Lower Mash, catching a good surf in the second monster, munchy wave in wave train.   Dan Lehner had the ender of the day at Junkyard in his Karnali creek boat.  Clearing his boat high enough that it blotted out the sun and caused Dan to land with such a big "sploosh" it knocked him out of his boat!  

After a great day tiring ourselves in the big water and running shuttle, we all celebrated a great day of paddling and "Cinco de Mayo" at Las Carretas mexican restaurant by the Super 8.  After dinner, most of us went to bed.  Dan and Rich stayed up late attending the movie the "Avengers" in 3D at the movie theatre next door to the hotel.

Sunday May 6th: More rain overnight.  To the disappointment of Rex, the Middle Fork of the Tygart had once again teased that it was going to fall to a reasonably runnable level only to rise too high once again. Sigh. Other choices were too high, some too low, some too far to drive on a Sunday.   After breakfast at Shoney's, Rex and Jim headed for the Big Sandy two hours away and the rest of us headed to the New River Dries.  The New River Dries is a section of the New river below Hawks Nest Dam that only runs when the New River is high enough that water spills over the dam.  The river was 14,400cfs at Thurmond, 5.5 on the Cotton Hill Bridge gauge.  We paddled from the Cotton Hill bridge to just above the New River Campground.  We were on the river by 10:15 and off at 1:15.  The water was comfortable, the air warm and the skies sunny.  Temperatures reached 80 degrees!  The Dries were in prime play form, offering up huge waves and big playful holes.  The first "slide" rapid had an awesome twenty foot wide wave hole on the bottom left.  We all spent lots of time here.  "Mile-long" rapid did not disappoint with large crashing waves.  "Landslide" rapid was exceptionally squirrelly, twirling everyone every which way.  We were all on the road home by 2 p.m.

Overall a great weekend.  Kudos to Joe for getting in three new rivers and to Alex for getting in two.  Thanks to Dan for the use of his massive shuttle beast.

Hope to see you all out there!