Captain Thurmond's Challenge 2009

A few weeks ago my friend Jaime said "Me and Mike are thinking about doing Captain Thurmond. You wanna do the paddle leg?" I quickly agreed, and set about finding a fast kayak. Mike and Jaime are both fast, and I didn't want to race the New River gorge in my creekboat. Bobby Miller had a Wavehopper he wasn't using, and I jumped at his kind offer to use the boat. I'd never paddled one of them, but a straw poll of friends moderately reassured me it would be fine. Except Nori, who reminded me how unfun it would be to swim in Double Z rapid. (He gets the last laugh, since he beat me, but at least I didn't swim)

Race Day dawned nice and sunny, and as church bells tolled the noon hour, 58 racers took off on the Le Mans start of the bike leg.

Video by Dave Seay.
If you look close at the :17 second mark, you can see Mike (in gray on a red bike) take off through the pack. The bike leg ran from the Fayetteville town center to Cunard, via a mix of pavement, gravel road and single track. Mike, on a hardtail single speed (34x16), grabbed the lead and held it as he bombed through the course in 54:52, a full 3 1/2 minutes in front of the next finisher. He would have been a little quicker, but a wheel came out from under him on a bridge crossing and the wreck twisted his handlebars around. He tried to ride 'em crooked, but eventually stopped and yanked them square. Also, there was the matter of divebombing around raft buses and trucks on the paved descent into Cunard. Just before 1pm, someone said "Here comes the first rider" and I looked up to see Mike blasting in. He handed me the team bracelet, and I sprinted off to the river.
I was a bundle of nerves and twitches as I sorted out the Wavehopper and my pacing in the first few miles of the race. (I squeezed the inside of the boat so hard that my legs ached for days.) It was indeed counter intuitive to paddle, (lean right to turn left) and the initial stability was almost nil. It took some time to learn to trust the wings and secondary stability the boat offered when heeled over or engulfed in whitewater.
There was no question it was fast though. Terrified I would lose the lead Mike gave us, I probably asked a dozen different rafts if they could see any racers upstream. If you are a raft guide, and a guy in a red Wavehopper paddled past and said "Seeanyonebehindme?" in a single grunt, that was me. Thanks for checking my six.
I passed a few friends and grunted hello's, and several people cheered me on in the pools. I got a little surge of speed every time someone cheered me on, which felt foolish and fun at the same time.
I rolled through Fayette Station rapid and nearly eddied out on the left, but managed to stay in some current almost to the beach, where Jaime was waiting. My kayak time for the Cunard to Fayette Station paddle was 53:23, good for 5th overall. I got beat by a Sea Kayak, two Pyranha speeders, and a K-1. It was fast enough, however, to keep us in the overall lead and send Jaime up the run in front.
She did a great job running up the seriously steep trails back to Fayetteville; nobody caught her and she cruised back into town with a bigger lead than she started with, still in front. Her run was 1:02:45, and our total time was 2:51 flat. Sweet!
Our team at the finish line. Mike Vanderberg, Jaime Fields, and JB Seay. Photo by Brian Menzies.

Brian Menzies, another Morgantownie, and winner of the Men's Solo with a stellar time of 2:59:25. 6th in Bike, 2nd in Kayak and 6th in the run. Fastest individual competitor, and he beat all the teams except one.

Messing about in boats after my leg of the race. I even had time to get in my boat and chase down a pilotless kayak. The Wavehopper proved to be a surprisingly good bulldozer for the swamped Mirage.
We hung around in town for the awards ceremony, and picked through the big pile of prizes onstage. I scored a pair of END trail runners via Water Stone Outdoors. I like em, and the company appears to have a great approach to making environmentally responsible shoes.
I had a great time, and look forward to defending our team title next year. Full results of the race can be found here. Thanks to Adam of Marathon Bikes for keeping the race alive, and thanks again to Bobby for the use of the fast kayak! Its pretty fun to paddle those quick boats...

Ed Gaker

Photo by Adam Johnson

It's been two months, but it still stings.
The phone rang at a late hour, and I knew intuitively it was not good news. I sat on the steps outside my in-laws', stunned by what I had just heard. The Morgantown kayaking community lost a member.
Ed Gaker was more than that, of course; he was one of a big family in Ohio, a doctor's son, headed to med school himself in the fall. Ed talked about how he needed to get all his boating in now, before he really hit the books. That's funny considering that he had just graduated Summa Cum Laude from WVU with a degree in Chemistry, while boating all the time. That dude was motivated.
Ed was in love; he asked his fiancée to marry him in the big eddy above Sweets Falls on the Gauley. He raised money for the ring he gave her by selling his Dagger Green Boat.

She was there watching helpless when everything came apart on Ed's run of Sherman falls, on the Lake Fork of the Gunnison in Colorado. You can read Sarah's brave account of what happened here. Her ability to collect her thoughts and post that to multiple message boards is impressive and appreciated. Thank You Sarah.
Ed's Facebook page quickly became a memorial of sorts, with words from friends and information about what happened pouring in. A number of boaters made the trip to Ohio to attend the memorial service and burial. Matt Fithian spoke of the recent marathon day of paddling that Ed and Ben Ledewitz had completed: Deckers Creek, the Big Sandy, the Upper and Lower Blackwater, and the Top Yough in a single day. I told you he was motivated. His parents invited everyone out to their home for food and fellowship after the burial. I think Sarah was the only person who knew both the boater and the hometown side of Ed. It was a nice chance to meet much of his family, learn more about Ed and each other, and find common ground in memories and recollections. Thanks very much to them for their hospitality.

One of the last times I paddled with Ed was a unique, spur of the moment opportunity. Clear skies and a full moon coincided with a good water level on the Big Sandy. I called Ed about 9pm, and of course he was game. C-1 extraordinaire Jay Ditty was game too, so we met up around 10:30 and headed to the put-in.
We blinded ourselves pretty well trying to take a picture at the beach, then clipped glow-sticks to the back of our pfds and set off. Everything went great. Wonder Falls was in full, direct light; from downstream it appeared to glow from within. Beautiful. Familiar rapids and lines passed by, and we found ourselves at Big Splat, the largest drop of the creek. As we crossed from river right to left to approach Splat, two large rocks loomed like a gate, with deep shadows behind them. I eddied out to think about the line, and ask Ed what he thought about running it in the dark. He made it pretty clear what he thought when he paddled right past me, into the entrance of the falls. I've run Big Splat pretty high, and I've run it in a playboat, I've even run it pretty high in a playboat, but no previous run compares to peeling out behind Ed and running though our familiar beast at midnight.
I'm gonna miss you buddy.

Its A Family Tradition

My Dad and I have been doing whitewater trips together for about 15 years. He helped me learn this sport, and we have had some fun adventures over the years. We got into the habit of doing a river on or around Fathers Day to make sure we got on the water together at least once a year. I now have kids of my own, and these trips are even more special.

The first trip was with Patrick, at 18months on the New River:Fire Creek Pool between Thurmond and Cunard

He enjoyed the trip, and giggled when we went through the waves, but I don't think he really got the river until next year, when we went out in duckies on the same stretch.

In 2008 we did the Cheat Narrows in duckies, his third time down that river. He had a great time, yelling directions to hit waves and insisting on having a paddle.

This year I was on a trip to California, which I will get all written up soon, so we did our Fathers Day celebration in July. This year, we had a new member on our team:

Isaac joins the Seay Family New River Rafting Team. I look forward to years of trips and memories.

Whitewater Blogger Malapropism of the Day

Its CHOCK full people. Not chalk full. As in "Dude, that river is chock full of wood"
Its like Chock full o'Nuts, but different.
You might also say "A log was chocked well overhead in the narrow canyon, evidence of high water" But you might as well use wedged that way nobody gets confused.

A weeklong Celebration of the Cheat River drainage, Part Two (Hiking through the woods with a kayak, Waiting for the water to go away,and Red Run)

The Monday after Cheat Fest it began to really rain. Morgantown got 2+ inches of rain in the early morning hours. My wife had an exam, so I played some phone tag with people, and Ed Gaker and I agreed to meet up once Rebecca got home and settled in with the kids.
In the interim, Ben Dunham called and told me that everything he'd seen around Morgantown was blown out, and that he was on his way to Daugherty Run near Albright. I held out hope that Quarry might just be high, and maybe even falling, but an inspection at the top proved it had at least 2x as much water as was prudent, maybe more. Ed and I decided to leave a car at a nearby parking lot and go catch Ben. While we were parking, a truck drove by with boats. We waved at the guys, and they backed up to talk. They were planning to put on Clay Run, which drains the middle of Coopers Rock State Forest, and flows into Quarry Run in the steepest section. They'd hiked the run before and thought it would have some drops worth doing. I warned them that we'd seen waaaay to much water on Quarry, and wouldn't be able to boat below the confluence of the two creeks, but that we would probably be okay on Clay until then. Hopeful of something new to run, we set off on foot down the creek, essentially starting from ridge atop it's headwaters.
3.5 Miles later, we reached Cheat Lake, having boated only a few yards of creek. The very top of Clay, out of the pond at the State Forest, was too small, and once there was boatable flow, the constant wood and lack of eddies in the tiny streambed made things difficult.
This 4' diameter culvert was interesting and fun early.

By the time we reached some good boulder piles and slides, the creek was high and still woody. Before long, we'd reached the confluence with Quarry Run, and 600+fpm does not handle the volume of water we saw in a "safe" or "fun" manner.

Big slide just below the confluence. This is the last third or so.

If you've ever seen "A Token of My Extreme" you may recognize this as the entrance to the real big slide where Jeff Snyder paddles into an overhung cave, disappears into the pillow and emerges onto the slide below. (Then vows "Not To Ever Do That Again) The cave is in the upper right quadrant of the photo, and was kinda full on this day.
Once we got back to the cars, the guys were kind enough to get me on the road home quickly, as I was late. They continued over to Bull Run after they ran the shuttle, and found it was much too high as well.
I spoke with Ben that evening, and he'd gotten three runs on Daugherty, including a solo sandwiched in between two different groups.

Tuesday morning brought still high flows and at least 4 different groups checked Bull Run throughout the day, expecting it to have dropped overnight, but it continued to remain much higher than anyone wanted. I stayed home with my kids while Rebecca studied for her next final. Creeks further out were running, but I hoped to stay on runs close to home and fast to do. Ed and I planned to try for Bull Run again in the morning,with him checking it early and hopefully getting a run in before his 11am final in Advanced Organic Chemistry. I also talked to Ben again, he did three runs on Fikes creek. A pattern is starting to emerge...

Wednesday I met Ed at the creek, and I think I pretty much talked him out of a high water run on The Matador, Bull Run's premier waterfall. A small storm cell had put 1/2" of rain right on the creek overnight, and it looked no lower than the day before. In retrospect, we should have put in below the falls and paddled the bottom of the creek at booming high water, but Ed was tired of driving to the creek and not being able to knock off the Matador, and just wanted to get going. Plus he had that final in a grad level chemistry class.
He did make up for it by running Stupid Falls on the East River in Colorado a week later, so hopefully he feels better now.

More rain was coming Wednesday night, so a bunch of people made plans to meet Thursday and try to get a run on one of the Canaan Valley creeks. 11am Thursday found lots of kayakers at the Otter Creek trailhead parking lot, the shared takeout for Red Run and Otter Creek. Seneca was too low, Otter was running, Red Run looked perfect, but might still be rising, and Red Creek had yet to be seen. We left cars at the trailhead, so we would have options, then drove to check Red Creek. It was too low, and the sun had come out, so we decided to get some burritos for lunch then put on Red Run.
Our group of 8 made quick work down to the first slide.
Ben Dunham, trying to keep warm in a pvc rain jacket (drytop forgotten at home).

Soon after is Goliath, a high speed, turning mix of bedrock and boulder
Don Smith starting at the top as Matt Fithian films.

Shawn Yingling up on the big pillow at the bottom, as Fithian continues to document.
Just downstream is the "Seed Spitter" drop, which I chose to walk, and then regretted after watching a couple boats go through. Not enough to un-portage and run it though.

Adam Johnson landing the pourover below the seed spitter slot.

Matt Fithian route finding in Maze rapid as Ben Dunham looks on. Ben is now warm in a borrowed drytop, thanks to the kindness of Jeremy, who abbreviated his own run to get to work on time.

Adam Johnson in the middle of the Maze.

Geoff Calhoun finishing up the Maze.

My favorite photo of the day, the bottom of Maze is just visible at the top of the photo.

Below Maze, we at a lot of time up getting around wood, pulling a log out of the water, and dealing with two equipment breaks. A snapped paddle blade, right above the Red Run Falls, and just below it, a badly broken boat, beyond any bituthane repair.

A breakdown solved Geoff's paddle problem, but Adam had to hike his boat out. Don volunteered to go with him, since he was familiar with the trails to the take-out, and also pointed out that daylight was fading, as it was about 6:30pm by then. The remainder of us continued downstream through several more big rapids, and then split up further at the cave rapid, which is hard to scout or film well, as it is ringed with large boulders and rhododendron. Three of us ran through, while the other two carried around and put back on a few minutes behind. With the exception of one poorly placed log, the mile below the Cave drop was fast, fun, read n run boulder gardens all the way to the Dry Fork of the Cheat.
A few more photos are available at my Picasaweb gallery, and at Shawn Yinglings.