Lower Gauley River First Descent and Bridge Day on the New

Bridge Day on the New River is something to behold. Most experience it from the deck of the New River Gorge Bridge about 900 feet above Fayette Station rapid. The lucky few witness it from the water after finding their own adrenaline rush paddling down amongst the rapids of the gorge.

Keelhaulers Phil and Jen Raber kindly organized a trip on the gorge on the Saturday of Bridge Day 2017, helping a few other club members navigate the crowds and closed roads to enjoy a 70-degree, partly sunny day—unusual for late October but welcome all the same.

Our view on Bridge Day 2017 from Fayette Station rapid on the New River Gorge.

The trip started with some unique navigating along Keeney Creek. A brief mountain hike, some bushwhacking and a jump across a remote Amtrak line led us down to a little-used put-in just below Middle Keeney. We climbed in our boats and dropped right into Lower Keeney. The level was approaching -1 foot, but nonetheless it was still the biggest rapid of the day. Low water, but we still enjoyed all the play opportunities.

Sooner than we expected, we were at Fayette Station witnessing the impressive show. Every few seconds a new jumper would leap from the bridge, open their chute and spend the next 30 to 60 seconds floating down to Earth. The good jumpers hit the bullseye on the takeout beach. A few unlucky souls splashed down and had to be fished out by safety boaters with some impressive horsepower. We watched for a while and then made the 4-mile flat water paddle to the takeout. Fayette Station Road was closed, making it impossible to use the normal takeout below the bridge. If you can, a good option is to leave a car the night before at the alternate takeout—access to this is closed on the evening before Bridge Day—on river right below the gorge bridge.

The day ended with a trip to dinner and a stop to visit the Summersville Dam—paying homage to the source of the Gauley River release we would experience the next day—at sunset before returning to Ray’s to rest up for day two. The first day definitely did NOT end somewhere around 10 p.m. with Nick, Phil and Jen expertly changing the water pump on a shuttle vehicle in the parking lot of a busy truck stop.

Day two started with breakfast at Biscuit World, a scenic trip over Gauley Mountain, courtesy our tour guide and photographer extraordinaire Jeff Macklin, before setting shuttle for the Lower Gauley. Ryan Laughlin joined the rest of the group, which included Mark and Pam, Nick Conway, Victor Kopyev and Matt Fredmonsky. Nick, Ryan and Matt were all making their first descents of the Lower Gauley, and what a group to be a part of! Phil, Jen, Mark and Pam all have countless Gauley runs and know the river well. They provided the perfect amount of guidance, support, encouragement and of course solid lines to keep us all smiling with no issues. No one swam, and there were less than a handful of combat rolls. Props to Nick who, despite being a first-timer, was fearless. He put on a nice display with a rodeo ride in 5 boat hole, side-surfing his Mamba, rolling, coming back up in the hole, spinning around and finally carving out toward the center of the river and floating down with a big grin.

Nick battling in 5 boat hole on the Lower Gauley river.

The rest of the run was sprinkled with huge wave trains, some nice playboat moves from Mark, impressive attainments from Phil in his green boat and otherwise happy paddlers. Trying to describe the beauty of the remote gorge with mere words would be a futile effort. Canyon Walls! The best way to describe it is to say it is a river experience like few others, one every paddler should work toward. The Gauley River offers arguably the biggest whitewater east of the Mississippi, and the last release of the season—with its sunny skies and 70-degree temperatures—did not disappoint.

Thanks to Phil I had a great line going through Koontz Flume on the Lower Gauley.

What impressed me the most about this West Virginia weekend, particularly the day spent on the Lower Gauley, was the way our trip leaders so graciously took the time to introduce the first-timers to the run. What a wonderful act of kindness! Not many of these rapids can be scouted easily, if at all, and some pose quite serious hazards—including deadly undercuts and pin hazards. Without good beta, this run can yield terrifying consequences if you can’t find the right line or end up swimming. We were all thankful for their input. It truly impressed upon me the fact that kayaking has a great tradition of passing on knowledge from one generation to the next. And trips like these are like a master class in navigating big water with all the challenges a river can offer. It was a privilege to paddle with and learn from some great kayakers. I think it’s fair to say that myself and the others look forward to the day that we might be able to impart that kind of wisdom to more new whitewater paddlers as they ramp up their own journeys down the river. 

New River Gorge First Descent

Class V selfie attempt under the New River Gorge bridge.

The New River is ironically named. It’s older than the Appalachian Mountains it carves through at more than 480 million years. But for every paddler at some point, it is, in fact, a new river. That’s what it was in early July for three Keelhaulers, who made their personal first descents of the New River Gorge.

Keelhauler vice president Don Howdyshell led Nick Conway, Javan Robinson and myself down the New for our first runs with Jeremiah Richard making his second trip down the gorge. The paddle started with a meet up at Cathedral Café, a chapel-turned restaurant in downtown Fayetteville, West Virginia, for a large, delicious breakfast before setting shuttle.

The trip was only Don’s third, but as the most experienced paddler in the group he felt confident leading a small, solid crew down—spending days studying his GoPro footage from his first two runs proved useful homework.

After unsuccessfully encouraging Javan to run the staircase seal launch at the Cunard put-in, we hopped in our boats and set forth. For the uninitiated, the water of the New is amazingly warm. Its North Carolina headwaters travel north to the gorge, making the pulsing green water feel like a drawn bath. The level was 2 feet which, according to American Whitewater, “most agree (is) the optimal level … the Keeneys, Double Z and Fayette Station are really stompin’” even though to seasoned NRG paddlers it’s low-flow. In the gorge, 2 feet is about 4,500 cfs, which for those of us who regularly paddle the Stony, Lower Yough and other like runs is about four times as much water as we're used to.

Weaving through the mountains, we passed through Pinball rapid, skirted the edge of Upper Railroad and bobbed down the middle of a few warmups before coming to Upper Keeney, the first of the three Keeneys—the rapids that would offer the tallest waves of the day. Upper Keeney was simple enough, just ride the wave train down the middle and grab the eddy on the left above Middle Keeney, which is where the fun really starts. As each boat dropped into Middle Keeney, it’s stern quickly disappeared. As you paddled in to the first drop, you caught a glimpse of the preceding boat’s stern summiting the giant haystack wave in the middle of the rapid before they quickly disappeared again, and you started your ascent up the beast. As the river pulsed, you might find yourself climbing it as a green wave and launching off the top, or if the wave was breaking you’d find yourself trying to brace into it as you got body slammed into what felt like a brick wall. Good times.

Amidst Lower Keeney rapid on the New River Gorge.

So far, so good. We gathered ourselves, got beta from Don on Lower Keeney and started our approach. We took the mother duck, all-the-ducks-in-a-row approach with Don leading followed by Nick, Javan, myself and Jeremiah running sweep. Here’s where whiplash took full effect. With all the paddlers lined up, inevitably each kayak was a little off the line of the boater ahead of them, with the final boat in the row the furthest off line. Don dropped in a little left of middle. Smooth. Nick hit the crashing curler ricocheting off the top boulder on the left, and he immediately went over. Javan slid down in and was off moving right nicely, while I recognized I was too far left and tried to boof onto the curler and got spun backwards. Jeremiah was so far left of the tongue that he almost boofed the guard boulder itself and got flipped right at the top. Don made it through smoothly, but Nick succumbed to the power and height of the waves and swam. Javan, seeing Don successfully moving to river right, followed suit. I started my turn downstream just in time to get sideways body slammed into the third large wave, brace into it and straighten out to line up for the next one and start working right. Jeremiah tried to time his rolls with the rising waves. Though unsuccessful, his first two attempts gave him just enough air to hold tight until things calmed down. He ended up running the nearly 100-yard rapid entirely upside down and successfully rolled somewhere near the Halls of Karma—an epic exercise in staying calm under pressure. At the end a massive whirlpool reached up and grabbed Javan’s stern, sucking it down and forcing a hard brace, but he was no worse for the wear. We gathered Nick and his Fun, took a hydration break on shore within sight of Lower Keeney to watch the rafts disappear in its waves while celebrating and enjoying the adrenaline high. It was intimidating, exhilarating, humbling and encouraging all at once.

Nick coming through Lower Keeney on his second day in the gorge.

The rest of the run was a breeze. Solid lines (thanks to Don), a few combat rolls to be had by all, some epic (and unexpected) stern squirts by Jeremiah, bluebird skies and warm breezes. After cruising through Fayette Station, the final rapid, we cheered on Nick as he dutifully drank his booty beer and set off to the Overlook restaurant, high on the gorge rim, where we watched the sun set behind the mountains and had a few rounds to mark the occasion. It was the stuff first-descent dreams are made of. A successful run that left everyone feeling empowered and accomplished, topped off with good company and tasty spirits. It left everyone asking, “When are we going back?”

Javan attempts to become one with the New River Gorge.

Ego Paddling

An unlucky soul swims a waterfall after failing to make his roll and missing two throw ropes.

Ego, it drives the world. It encourages great leaders to fight for what’s right, because they are confident in their convictions and their abilities enough to know that their righteousness is worthy of the push to discover what’s possible. They know that the knowledge and principles they possess suggest their personal judgment calls warrant consideration, contemplation, and maybe even adherence to, or personal adoption, by a greater audience.

Yet ego also can motivate the irrational, inaccurate, even dangerous man.

In my few modest years as a whitewater kayaker I’ve learned that ego does both to every paddler, whether they are the former or the latter.

Often, the result is the same for these two types of paddlers. One pushes hard, and fast, setting their sights on the next big run, the next big drop and the most challenging rivers. The other is more methodical and seeks a more linear progression curve. The first boater often fails to focus on sharpening basic skills and techniques and suffers for it, and the results are predictable – injuries, swims, damaged (or lost) gear or worse. The second boater takes multiple runs to master a descent, all the while practicing and perfecting strokes and body English, accumulating knowledge before moving up the difficulty scale. You know these boaters. Chances are, you are one or the other.

I’ve also learned that it’s the impatient, inexperience paddlers pushing the envelope who also disregard the opinions of their peers and find themselves in unwanted situations – like getting a beat down for their troubles. I see it often. Whereas the most pain the more patient boater is likely to receive comes from the jabs and barbs cast at them for being afraid to push the edge, or for being deemed lame by their peers for running the same stretches repeatedly. I see that too.

Ego drives them both, for in their own minds they are right and the other is wrong. Recently, among my small paddling group boaters have been finding themselves on one side of the line or the other. Criticism flies. Each points the finger at the other, saying they’re the ones who are wrong. Sadly, we are all human. And as much as we want to believe that being kayakers makes us holier-than-thou for loving the Earth and seeking out the mystical Zen that aligns our bodies and minds with the flow of the river, we are wrong. In the end, we are made of dirt and stardust. A mix of grit and wonder; mostly rough, sometimes shining yet often unkind sacks of loosely organized meat. Judgmental gossipers, we all are.

There are paradoxical benefits to both boaters. Without pushing the envelope, there can be no progression. But one cannot push the envelope and truly progress without first correctly gathering the skills necessary to do so.

Few can strike the balance and find the advantages that each paddler possesses and add them to their repertoire. Cautious optimism, a desire to improve, the will to take calculated risks (and know when not to) and the patience to hone the techniques required to enter the kingdom of the Class IV-V boater. Think Rafa Ortiz, Dane Jackson, Pat Keller, Stephen Wright, and others.

So, what do we do? How do we learn from the lessons these two boaters can teach us? We listen to each other. Try that seemingly boring ferry or eddy move. Push the envelope a little. 

As Maynard James Keenan once said, “I’m the man, and you’re the man, and he’s the man as well, so you can point that fucking finger up your ass!”

Return to the Cuyahoga River Upper Gorge

A little less than a year ago, I made my personal firstdescent of the Cuyahoga River Upper Gorge, more commonly referred to as the Sheraton section in downtown Cuyahoga Falls. At the time, this Class IV (dare I say Class V at normal flows?) was running at a low, first-descent friendly 300 cfs. It was my first introduction to some of Ohio’s best whitewater, and my first time running waterfalls.

But it was low, and I felt somehow unaccomplished. We returned with a good crew to tackle it at the next, more-challenging level of 500 cfs. Myself and Jeremiah Richard were making our first run of the Cuyahoga River Upper Gorge at this level. Fellow Keelhaulers Don Howdyshell and Jeff Cramer were there to provide guidance and support, and Sheraton Shaolin Nic Williams threw in support as well.

I’ll let the video tell the story, for I can’t do it justice in comparison. Watch it here.

10 Whitewater Kayaking Terms to Know

Beater (noun); also, to beater (verb)

Below are 10 whitewater kayaking terms every paddler should know.

1.       Swimmer (noun)

a.       A transitional period; when a kayaker fails to roll upright and swims out of their boat.

b.       YOU. You are a swimmer. Never forget that.

2.       Kayak (noun)

a.       A vessel, commonly plastic, used to navigate rivers, lakes, oceans (see sea kayak, whitewater kayak, et al.).

b.       Home. Your kayak is your home. Don’t you want to stay in your home?

3.       Paddle (noun) to paddle (verb)

a.       A stick-like tool with a thin, long shaft and wide, flat blades at each end.

b.       Otherwise known as that thing that you lose all the time and other people have to fish out of the water for you.

c.       Also, To paddle (v); to flail ones arms wildly in an attempt to maneuver a kayak.

4.       Boof (verb)

a.       A paddle stroke used at the lip of a drop or water fall to lift the bow of one’s kayak vertically to clear the base of the drop.

b.       The sound you make when you miss your boof stroke, slam your bow into the drop and face plant into the base of the water fall.

5.       Bow (noun)

a.       The front of a kayak.

b.       To take a bow; what you do when you nail your boof stroke.

6.       Stern (noun)

a.       The rear of a kayak.

b.       The look on your face when you have to fish a swimmer out of the river for the third time in one day.

7.       Eddy (noun)

a.       Unidentified man, possibly a criminal, because everyone constantly yells at you “Catch Eddy!”

b.       also, a location on the river, created by a large obstacle (such as a boulder), where the water is calm and a swimmer (you) can escape the current.

8.       Wave (verb, noun)

a.       Kayaking maneuver performed when going over a sick water fall in front of a big crowd.

b.       Also, a feature on the river used by playboaters to perform tricks in their kayak.

9.       Hole (noun)

a.       The thing in the top of a kayak one uses to crawl into it

b.       Also, an inescapable feature on the river that you never seem to avoid

10.   Shuttle (adjective)

a.       To drive oneself from the river trip take out point to the put-in location.

b.    Eternity; see also, limbo

Underrated Wave in Munroe Falls

The wave is downstream of two water treatment plants, so after a heavy rain expect some unpleasant odors. 

There's a little-known park-and-play surf wave in Munroe Falls, Ohio, at Brust Park on the Cuyahoga River.

The gentle wave is at its prime when the USGS Old Portage gauge is reading between 900 cfs and 1,100 cfs. Unfortunately, the gauge is several miles downstream, so the reading can be deceiving if there's been a lot of rain, but it's the closest gauge we've got.

The wave forms in the tiny remnants of what was once the Munroe Falls Dam, which was removed around 2005. It has decent eddy service at the right flows, but it is shallow, so if you roll expect to scrape your blade, and possibly you're helmet!

The Munroe Falls wave is great because it's gentle and wide, so it's good for beginners to get a feel for front-surfing and side-surfing with a low probability of rolling. Downstream of the wave is a large, flat pool. And the parking lot is about 100 feet from the wave.

Need more convincing to try out this underrated play spot? Check out these photos.

The wave has room for a max three surfers.

If the river's high enough, the wave hands out flat spins like candy.

Winter flows are best, as it's not rain but melting snow at the headwaters that provides most of the flow.

Yes, that's a large Nomad side-surfing.

It's shallow, so try not to roll.

Fun times.

Whitewater is Magic

Whitewater kayaking is magical. Finding the balance between man and water is a dance. And when the rhythm is just right, there is no feeling like it.

I've been spending a lot of time surfing the 271 wave on the Cuyahoga River in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Last year ill health kept me out of a few sessions, so I got to pretend to be a photographer. Here are a few of my favorite attempts at capturing the magic there.

Cheat Canyon First Descent

Matt, AKA "River Ninja," John "El Presidente," Hull's Angel Jason and DBP admin Jivin' Javan.

Blazing sun cut across the crisp, cold morning air. Sharp blue skies were punctuated by the undulating mountains of West Virginia. The put-in for the Cheat River Canyon was as deserted as the bare branches of the winter trees. But there was no snow; only four boaters and enough water for a low-runnable paddle down the Cheat Canyon on a cold Sunday morning in October.

For three of us, it was our first descent of the canyon. Our group leader was the unshakeable Jason R. A founding member of Hull’s Angels, the initiation for joining his paddling group is to beat up a member of the Keelhaulers. Fortunately, we had him outnumbered at three-to-one. So he agreed to guide us down the canyon after having spent countless days on the Cheat (including the two days before our trip).

Jason has been paddling big water for a few seasons. Just weeks before our trip, he’d already had numerous marathon runs on the Gauley River (upper, middle and lower runs). The Tygart Gorge, Lower Big Sandy and New River Gorge were all old news to Jason. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he started calling specific named rapids on the Cheat Canyon “no-name” or “choose your own adventure.” Maybe because we had him outnumbered as Keelhaulers that was how he took a shot at the club-boater rivalry. Of course, we were grateful when he would rally us before the big ones – Teardrop, Coliseum and Pete Morgan – to show us the lines gracefully and flawlessly.

We had fewer than four combat rolls and no swims. Our paddling group consisted of just John Banach, Javan Robinson, Jason and myself. We made it a day-trip, so counting the long shuttle we spent at least eight hours in a car for maybe three hours on the water. It was beyond worth it. The Cheat Canyon is a special place where green water meets red rock, purple mountains, blue skies and of course seemingly endless frothy whitewater. The picture of the Class II approach into the Canyon from the put-in at Albright, where ghostly pillars stretch across the river without a bridge deck to give them purpose, is forever burned into my memory.

For three of us, it was another notch on our rescue belt. For me, the Cheat was my second personal first descent for 2016, and it was by far the biggest. Another epic trip that I will never forget. I can’t wait to go back for Cheat Fest in 2017 and get more days on the water in this beautiful piece of Americana. 

The view from the take out bridge at the Cheat River Canyon.

Bruised Ribs and Egos on Stonycreek Canyon

Punching Showers rapid on the Stonycreek Canyon. Photo credit: Matt Jackson

The spring of 2016 proved generous to paddlers in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, as one of the region’s great river-play runs ran often. I’m talking of course about the Stonycreek Canyon in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where they must get enough rain to fill the Quemahoning Reservoir in order to get the scheduled whitewater releases to turn the Stony Canyon into a playboater’s wet dream.

Typically the reservoir runs low and stops releasing by early summer. Last year, the Stony was running into July. Every-other weekend, members of the Keelhaulers Canoe and Kayak Club became fixtures in the shuttle parking lots at the ballfields and Carpenter’s Park.

On one June weekend the reservoir had enough water to release on both Saturday and Sunday, and a group of us turned the rare summer occasion into a weekend of paddling and camping. I had spent the winter and spring getting comfortable in my new down-river playboat, a banana-colored Fuse 64, and so every feature on the Stony became a challenge for surfing, spinning or just dropping into it for a beating. I had more than a dozen sessions playing in Swimmer’s on the Lower Yough, surfing the various waves at 271 on the Cuyahoga and anywhere else I could find a hole or wave to do some playboating work in.

Needless to say, I was feeling especially confident – despite really not having any playboating moves – when  I dropped into the surfer’s right side (river left) of the Third Sister rapid on the Stony Canyon to test my mettle. The rapid is a ledge drop that creates a wicked hydraulic at all levels, with a narrow playspot. I wasn’t entirely unprepared for the ride, but I wasn’t expecting to get so stuck that several times the thought “I am never going to get out of here” would run through my head. I was side surfing pointing river left. Then I was rodeo-riding into a side surf pointing river right. Then I pulled a flat spin. And on, and on it went for what felt like an eternity (but was really between 2 minutes to 3 minutes max). The upstream pull of the hole made it impossible for my meager skills to get me to surfer’s left, and freedom, where a break in the bedrock creates a tongue that provides the weary (and informed) paddler an escape. I managed to ride the hole, much to the entertainment of the small crowd enjoying lunch on the bank, without flipping until I muscled my way out to surfer’s right. The ride was certainly uglier than a dead pig wearing lipstick, but in my mind it was a success. I survived without rolling or swimming, and I got a few spins – unintended or not – in for posterity’s sake.

That day we paddled all the way down to Greenhouse Park, where we further exhausted ourselves playing in the wave for a few more hours as the last of the day’s water trickled away. We all had a stellar, confidence-building day and were ready for day two.

Pulling a stern stall in the Stony play wave at Greenhouse Park. Photo credit: Jeremiah Richard

Our micro-Keelhaulers crew included Javan Robinson, Josiah Colvin, Nick Conway, Jeremiah Richard and Pete Costello. It poured down rain that night, adding extra juice to our already amped-up attitudes for the weekend.

We embarked on our second day feeling ready to conquer the Stikine. Fortunately, it was just the Stony. I’d spent the night around the campfire egging on Javan, who has shown some incredible growth in a short time paddling. I kept telling him that if he dropped into the Third Sister hole, I would aim for a repeat performance. I kept telling him it wasn’t that bad, but it would be an epic ride. Javan isn’t one to shy away from a challenge, and given his physical fitness level of somewhere between 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee, he can almost always muscle his way out of a tight spot.

As we approached the hole, we were all paddling single-file. Javan was up front and dropped straight in to start surfing. His Dagger GT sliced back and forth, the bow only submerging periodically before bursting back through. But it was clearly more of a bucking Bronco than a pony ride, and he started struggling to control his direction. That’s just when Josiah was lining up to drop in. Javan darted left as the hydraulic starting moving Josiah sideways, and bam! The arrowhead-shaped bow of the GT found soft flesh between the padding of Josiah’s PFD.  

Josiah was in pain, yet no one but him knew just how much. We took a moment to gather the group, and then we continued down the canyon. Josiah’s moans grew louder, and he slowly drifted towards the back of the pack. At one point, I think I heard him mutter “My ribs are broken.” As we drove home, he started complaining the force of the wind with the windows down made his sides hurt. A few days later, he learned that he’d left the canyon with bruised ribs thanks to the unintentional contact at Third Sister with Javan’s bow. He had to take a brief hiatus from paddling, but in the end we all learned two valuable facts. Never drop into a playspot if Javan is already in it. And the Third Sister is the ugliest sister! So if you ever paddle with our small group and hear someone jokingly say “Go for his ribs!,” now you’ll know why. 

Finding Nirvana in the Cuyahoga Upper Gorge

Me going for the boof line at Welcome to the Jumble/Staircase rapid on the Cuyahoga River Upper Gorge (Sheraton) section. I nailed it, despite some low-water scraping at the lip and plugging hard. Photo credit: Shawn Yingling

I embarked on my meager whitewater kayaking journey five years ago. That’s when I first set my sights on the Sheraton section, or UpperGorge, of the Cuyahoga River. My kayaking quest started in 2010, in a rented kayak, using a rec paddle to struggle to stay straight on a 5-mile flat water trip down the Cuyahoga River between Kent and Munroe Falls. I was hooked instantly.

I quickly bought a crossover rec boat of my own and was running entry-level sections in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park every chance I got. I soon progressed to a true whitewater boat, met some “real” paddlers and learned about our area’s hidden gem – a Class V stretch with two small waterfalls hidden in plain sight between a highway and a huge hotel in Cuyahoga Falls.

As I learned to paddle, the Cuyahoga Upper Gorge remained the carrot-stick dangling in front of me, driving me on. Although it took a few years for me to stop thinking of it as a never-going-to-happen paddle experience and start imagining myself running between the gorge’s steep, rocky cliffs.

Almost six years after I started paddling the season had finally come. In 2016 I truly started to believe I would paddle the Upper Gorge. I had a near bomb-proof roll. I’d been running Class III-IV for two years. I felt ready. But I wanted my personal first descent to be in optimal conditions. That meant I was waiting for warmer weather, longer (and brighter) days, a level that wasn’t above recommended flow or below bare-bones flow, and a solid group.

Finally, in late July, a summer rainstorm delivered just enough water to bring the Upper Gorge back to life. It was 80 degrees. The level was low-runnable. And a few of the local shaolin masters who could run the Upper Gorge blindfolded, regardless of level, including Tommy Piros, Shawn Yingling and Don Howdyshell, thanklessly agreed to set safety and guide me down.

I won’t detail how I navigated every nuance of the run. There’s a great video that does that. Instead, I wanted to express the larger-than-life feeling that comes from floating in a place where only an exclusive group of people have ever been. As the Upper Gorge bent from south to west, and the run started to level out in the Gorge Dam pool, the setting sun set the gorge walls ablaze just as we were paddling out. The roar of the adjacent highway and bustle of downtown Cuyahoga Falls faded away. The mind-altering peace of this special place settled in, and it felt like home.

Truly there is no better feeling than a first descent. Four years of anticipation, the unmatched positivity of the group and a gigantic feeling of accomplishment left me truly and spectacularly amazed by the power of this short, urban whitewater trip. I hope someday, when the time is right, you too will know the best whitewater the Cuyahoga River has to offer.

*Disclaimer: the Sheraton section of the Cuyahoga is for experienced paddlers only. If you don't know what the word "boof" means and don't have a bomb-proof roll, do not attempt this run.

Kayaking the Year Away in 2016

Hapy days.

“What are the hashmarks?” Aside from a great conversation starter, the hashmarks on the backside of my paddle are how I loosely tracked my days on the water for 2016. I started the year off on the water on New Year’s Day and on Jan. 2. Back-to-back days on the water to start the year was more than I could ask for. And it helped me set my hopes high.

So to informally track how many times I got in my boat I started scrawling marks on my paddle blade. Each slash represented a day on the river, somewhere, paddling Class II or better. I had hoped for 50. I came close and notched 39 days on the water. Family obligations slowed my pace. Trips involving two days or more on the water helped. In the end, it represented 39 gloriously happy days with friends, two epic first-descents and a tremendous amount of personal paddling development.

Really it amounts to less than one day a week. It doesn’t sound like much. Especially knowing one of our area paddlers notched 300 days on the water in 2016 (#amazing). But I got a great mix of park-and-play time, big water runs and lots of down-river play sessions. Even one day would be enough. So far, so good for 2017. Where will 2018 find me?