Rafting with The Rivermen
The Upper Gauley River, West Virginia
Octoberbreak, 1999.
A group of seven of us went together and six of us had never
rafted before. The 8 hour drive went surprisingly fast, in part because of the
incredible Autumn scenery along the roads. I took almost an entire roll of film
during the car ride, but you know how the back windows of minivans are tinted?
Bummer. So most of my photos don't do justice to the brilliant colors.
This is what the brochure
says about the Upper Gauley: The Gauley River has been rated as one of the top ten commercially run rivers in the world... The Upper Gauley is one of the most famous stretches of whitewater in the country. In just over nine miles you can experience some of the best rapids in the world. This section is very intense and not recommended for first time rafters.
...It drops more than 335 feet in 9 miles, giving an average gradient drop of 37+ feet per mile. It features over 40 rapids, 5 of them being monsterous Class V rapids. This section is not for the faint of heart. From the hair-raising put-in at Summersville Dam to the gut-wrenching drop at Sweet's Falls, the Upper Gauley is action-packed from start to finish. Due to the intense nature of this trip, prior rafting experience and the ability to self-rescue are highly recommended...
(Class VI rapids are considered impassable.)
Five of us left Sunday morning
and arrived that evening. These bunks seemed like grass mats Sunday night, but
Monday night they felt wonderful.
If we look tired and cranky,
it's because we just got up at 4:30 a.m. (Indiana time) to eat breakfast and squeeze
ourselves into clammy, smelly wetsuits so that we'd be ready to head off to the
river by 5:30.
We head toward our first
rapid. Each raft has a guide from The Rivermen who controls the raft and shouts
out commands about which side should paddle what direction and when we should
all scramble to one side or the other to (hopefully) avoid flipping. Our guide
was Teddy Queen, and he was outstanding. He'd just graduated from Marshall college
and didn't mind at all (or prentended not to mind) that six of us had never rafted,
and five of us were female.
Now we're heading into our
first Class V rapid, Insignificant (not really fitting). Before each rapid, Teddy
would describe what we'd be seeing, which path we wanted to take, what might happen
if we get off that path, and places we definitely wanted to avoid. Serious rapids
often have undercut rocks around or in them, which look like normal rocks above
water. The current flows under these rocks, though, so if you fall out of the
raft and are cruising down the rapid, you need to know where these are so that
you don't get swept underneath them. The Rivermen were excellent because the five
or six rafts that were out on Monday really looked out for each other. 
Looking back on Insignificant. Having made it through our first Class V,
we're all pretty pumped up and a little more confident.
Our next Class V, Pillow Rock, gave us a little more trouble. One of our front guys fell out but swam back to the raft pretty quickly. An older guy from another boat also went swimming and was swept under and away from his raft. He bounced between the surface and the rocky bottom along the way, so Teddy threw him a rescue rope and we pulled him into our raft. It was kind of scary because he had blood dripping down his face and kept gasping "Help me, help me, I'm sick!" even after he was in our boat. Teddy and I were afraid he was having a heart attack, but after loosening his jacket and helmet and puking overboard a few times, he was starting to feel better and even joked about the crazy things he'd do to get into a boat with a bunch of pretty girls. (I'm sure no offense was meant toward Jason, Charlie, or Teddy) In the photo it looks like I'm not even in the raft, but I am.
We thought it'd be uncomfortably cold, but it was actually perfect. The air was about 72 and the water wasn't too bad, either. It was somewhat overcast most of the day, but you can't have it all, I guess.
The scenery was amazing.
The leaves were all changing and there was a fine mist shrouding parts of the
gorge. Between rapids we'd just glide down the river and try to take it all in.
These, in technical rafting
jargon, are called BFRs: Big F#@*ing Rocks. Try not to hit those. Some of them
are so huge and undercut that entire rafts can disappear under them, which is
obviously very bad news.
This picture is serendipity
at its best. I had a waterproof, single use camera hanging from one of the buckles
on my Personal Floatation Device (they're better than life jackets, apparently),
and at some point when it was getting knocked around by my paddle, this picture
happened... and it's one of my favorites from the entire trip. 
We got a special treat thanks to the recent
storms on the coast. Teddy said that commercial runs on the Gauley don't go if
the river is above 2800 cubic feet per second (it's a dammed river) but halfway
down the trip, Meadow River feeds into the Gauley. Usually it adds almost nothing,
but because of all the rain, the Meadow was swollen and half of our rapids, including
three of our Class Vs, were flowing at about 3400 cfs. That's big water. 
Behind Beth and Krissy is Sweet's Falls,
a 14 foot drop and our last Class V. At first Teddy prepared us to go down paddling,
then as soon as we hit to start paddling all back to avoid Postage Due and a tight,
turbulent squeeze called The Box (all the big rocks had names). In light of the
huge water, though, Teddy changed his mind and just had us get low in the raft
and hold on, and then as we crashed into the wall of churning water at the bottom,
we all dug in and paddled back. We paid no postage and avoided The Box. :-) After
getting to calmer water, we paddled back upstream (got a great burn in our muscles)
and tied ourselves to a little tree on a rock. The current flowing around a big
rock makes an eddy, or an area of calm water. That's where we are in this photo,
and we had the best view to watch other rafts hit Sweet's Falls while we waited
for the other people in our entourage.
A lot of the rafts
from the other companies ended up in The Box, and it got ugly for a while because
they were flipping on each other, and then another raft would get swept in and
ride up on the rafts and people already back there. Sweet's was the last big rapid,
so just beyond it most rafts paddled over to the sides and waited for the rest
of their groups. Anytime people swam or rafts flipped, it was called carnage and
all the onlookers would cheer and then help people out of the water and pick up
runaway paddles.
This is most of the Rookie
Raft, which ran the Gauley in high water with only two swimmers and no flips.
It was a blast and I think I'm hooked, although we are spoiled now because
we started on one of the best rivers. In the photo, from left to right: Teddy,
Beth, Krissy, me, Jason, and Susan (our trip planner- thank you so much!!)
This is the sun rising Tuesday morning as we
began our voyage home. I think The Rivermen were fantastic and credit our positive
experience to their passion and expertise, so I'll plug them as much as possible.
There are trips available for all skill levels and rock climbing, hiking, and
other stuff there, too. Visit their website
or call 1-800-545-RAFT for information about planning a trip. I highly recommend
it. :-)
I wrote this during the car ride home...
The Rivermen, October 13, 1999
Slicing through the Autumn gorge
and West Virginian mist
The water urges you to live
instead of just exist
Plunge into your fears to wake
from listless City Sleep
The current calls the shots out here
and sovereignty runs deep
But there are some who hear her voice
and understand her chants
They learn to gracefully keep time
and lead her churning dance
The Gauley gives free lessons in
a different kind of Zen
But through her ever-changing grasp
will slip The Rivermen