Upper Blackwater Put-in Panorama

When you walk down to paddle the Upper Blackwater, near Davis, West Virginia, this is what greets you as you emerge from the trees onto the riverside boulders. ( Click for a bigger view. )



The standard start for the trip is Hundred Yard Dash, starting dead center, but everything upstream to the base of Blackwater Falls has been run at one point or another. For reference, this photo was taken at about 280 cfs. The river has been run down into the 100's, but many prefer 250-300 as a minimum level.
Maximum is user discretion, but I know of at least one recent run by Justin Venable at 750 on the Davis Gauge. Solo, no less.


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Elsey Run

The snow and ice have relented and we got warm (for February) temps, and on a weekend no less. Saturday night everything shot up, and Sunday offered lots of options. I enjoyed a lazy morning and caught up with a group who had just finished Daugherty Run, in Albright, WV. Five of us got together and headed up the mountain to paddle Elsey Run

Elsey is the steepest run in the Albright area, starting off with just a few minutes of warmup and then getting right into the goods.
Here is Art Barket getting back in the water after portaging around a log.
Note the heavy glaze of ice; we had difficult conditions for scouting and portaging drops. Slippery and cold.
From the first big scout, (which has a log in the entrance) Elsey falls out of the sky for a good half mile. There are 10 huge boulder drops, right on top of one another, with minimal eddies, logs in play, caves, rhododendron everywhere, and tough scouts and safety. You know, awesome. Sitting in bed last night, I realized I still smelled like Hemlock sap from all the scrambling amongst the trees. (*edit: looking at the map, this section falls at about 800fpm for a 1/4 mile)
JB Seay (me) enjoying the boof at the bottom of Acid Drop the first of the big ones. Photo by Art Barket.


Art in the middle of an easy one in the steeps.

For you guys who have run Elsey, the "room drop" is still diverting through the cave, with an uphill paddle to get to the old line. We skipped that one.

Sam Burk hitting up a nice slab of sandstone.


Ben Ledewitz styling the very next drop. JB Seay, Adam Johnson, and Sam Burk on safety. Art Barket behind the lens.


Me in the middle of my favorite drop on the creek. Photo by Art Barket.
This marks the bottom of the Captain Insano section.

Ben Ledewitz finishing er up. Photo by Art Barket.
Below here the creek transitions to high speed mank (description courtesy Ben Dunham) still short on eddies, and lots of logs and Rhododendron, but less stacked up. After a half mile of that, we reached the bedrock section of the creek, with half a dozen 10-25' slides all in a row.


Adam Johnson on a slide in his borrowed kinda old school creekboat. Whee.

As the canyon opens up, there is one last big one on the run, a 70 degree slide with some unfriendly guardian rocks on its right side. Sam and Ben aced that one, but with light fading we had no photo. In the classic video Fallin Down you can observe BJ Johnson and Colby Mackley running this drop with good result.
Below the Big Falls the creek is read and run all the way to the Cheat. It's a good thing, as at least one of the landowners along this section has threatened several times to shoot kayakers floating by for trespassing on his property. For this reason, we park at the Daugherty run take out just downstream on the Cheat and move fast when checking levels or finishing a run.
For more info you can check out my gallery, Art Barket's awesome set of pics and Sam Burk's post on the Team Riot site.


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Whats it got in its pocketses?

I carry a fair amount of stuff in my boat and on my person whenever I kayak.


In or on my pfd, I have a knife, folding saw, a tiny drybox with a led headlamp and a lighter, two mini pulley thingies, 2 locking carabiners, two prussicks, a glow stick, a compass, and a whistle. I also carry a sling of webbing around my waist with a locking carabiner and a paddle carabiner. This is how I hit the water, whether its raft guiding, steep creeking, or taking my son out in a ducky. I used to carry a bag valve mask, but decided I'm more likely to hike out in the dark than perform cpr, so i swapped in the headlamp and lighter so I have something even if I lose my boat. I used to depend on the glowstick, and still keep one in there, but it's hard to hike through rhododendron with just a glow. Trust me. As for the lighter, well, I think Jack London painted a pretty good picture.


In my boat I always carry a 70' spectra throwbag, and an emergency kit packed in a nalgene bottle. My kit contains a large trashbag, lighter and rubber for a fire, sam splint, ibuprofen, maxi pad and a few band-aids, space blanket, duct tape and a paddle carabiner. The nalgene bottle can be emptied out and used for water, with the other gear put inside a ziploc from the kit. The trash bag can be used as a splint, to carry water, groundcloth, poncho, partial bivy sack, and covering a large wound. The sam splint is a luxury, but it makes splinting so easy I bring it. I'm pretty light on first aid equipment, but for simple day trips, your priorities are going to be stabilization and evac, not particularly treatment. Maxi pad for blood, band aids and duct tape for stubborn bleeders, ibuprofen for pain and inflammation. I've taken an EMT class, and followed it up with a Wilderness EMT upgrade, so I feel comfortable with my level of knowledge. If I'm going in somewhere more remote, like otter creek or red creek in the winter, I'll throw in a dry bag with some gloves, an extra fleece, and a warm hat.

Comments? What do you carry?

Red Run

Red Run is a small creek that drains the southern backside of Canaan Valley. It sports the same tannic acid stained water as the other Canaan creeks. I think Red Run is the most difficult of the regularly run Canaan Valley creeks, and offers a fine collection of unique boulder gardens with a few bedrock slides for variety. A big group of us met up in Hendricks back in May to decide on a plan. The water level was minimal, so group A headed up to do Red Creek, flowing out of Dolly Sods, while Ben Dunham, Jay Ditty, Matt Walker and I chose to put on Red Run. This would be Matt's first time, and my first time in quite a while. The run is tiny and busy, and almost always seems too low for the first mile or so. The first real, long slide gets your attention, and signals the beginning of the goods:

Ben Dunham about to glide through. The hole here can get really big.

Shortly downstream is a large, multi-tiered twisting drop.

Ben again, starting at the top.

Me, in the middle. Photo by Jay Ditty

Jay Ditty at the bottom 90 degree turn.

Immediately downstream is the "Watermelon Seed Drop" Most of the creek funnels through a folding slot, then spits you out, often in a tailstand, over a pourover. A unique sensation.

Scouting the Watermelon Seed. The spitter is on creek right, about where Jay is standing.

About halfway down the run, it steepens up again, with several big boulder piles, then a transition to bedrock slides just above the falls of Red Run. Here's a few shots of the funnest boulder pile:


Ben picking his way through the top.

Matt Walker powers through the next to last slot

Me finishing up the pile. Photo by Jay Ditty
It had numerous slots and choices throughout, and is just an awesome rapid. I was so excited to snap photos of it, that I slipped and fell while scrambling to get a pic of Jay, and the camera flew out of my hand and over the boof pictured. The camera was later found, and the memory chip made its way back to me just before Christmas. Hooray!
Just below camera eater is the Falls of Red Run, and another great mile or more of serious boulder drops before you hit the Dry Fork of the Cheat.

A complete and total skunking.

Saturday I made plans to meet Don Smith in Canaan and go kayaking. Here's how it went:

9:30am Depart Morgantown with entire family.
10am: My brand name roof rack system came apart on the interstate, sending my kayak cartwheeling across the roof of my car, down the side (where it smashed a window right behind my 3yr old son's head) and onto the asphalt at about 80mph.
It passed me as I stopped on the shoulder of the road. Sounded like when the videobaters go down the steps at Cunard.

I think, "Okay, everyones fine, the boat's not broken, I can save this". I finished the drive to my mom's in Clarksburg, dropped the boys off with their Grandma, and took off in her truck, bound for Canaan and the joys of gravity. Taping up the car window and getting my mom's truck ready took a little while, but I can still make it. Its about 11am.

Stop and get a sandwich in Elkins, smell antifreeze, and find the upper radiator hose has a hole in it. I hurry to an Advance auto parts, change the hose, and have the truck running and topped off with coolant again. It is now 12:30 and I'm freaking a little.

Finally arrive at the Red Creek take out at 1:10 or so, and see a bunch of cars, including Don's. He is about 20 minutes ahead of me, and I figure I can still catch them on the hike or at least in the paddle-in to the steeps. I CAN STILL SAVE THIS!

Halfway up the mountain I realize I don't have a skirt.
I'm Doomed.
Why I forgot to put it in the gearbag, i don't know, but it ain't there. I drive on, hoping to catch someone with a spare at the put in, but no luck.
Back down the mountain, and I leave a note on Don's car. I'm sorry you had to wait so long man.
Decide to head for the North Fork of the Blackwater, hoping to borrow a skirt there for a quick run, but on the way out I discover the fuel gauge does not work below 1/2 a tank and run out of gas.
2:30pm: take a pleasant walk on a country road with my wife.
3:30pm:depart Canaan with my tail between my legs, and hope for better luck next time.