Tuesday, September 25, 2007

GOOD GAULEY!

SEPTEMBER 22ND-24TH--GAULEY FESTIVAL

We arrived to the fairgrounds in Summersville, WV around 9:30pm on Friday night and already found a very happening campground. Kayakers abounded, and the fairgounds were already so full that we had to settle for a parking spot out by the ballfield for the night.

Saturday was the official day of the Gauley Fest., and after an early morning run on the river, Don and I headed back to the fairgrounds to see if we could convince more people to sign up for the free trip e-mail lottery we are holding. (Go to www.smallworldadventures.com to sign up).
A big thanks to both Wave Sport and Dagger for helping us to spread the good word about the excellent whitewater in Ecuador. Hobie and Dagger were kind enough to share some of their booth space with us, and it was great to visit with old friends and meet lots of new paddlers at one of the best whitewater festivals around.
Well, that's all I have to say about the actual festival...Thanks AW for making it happen!













We spent Sunday and Monday running the river, and being amused by the rafters. Don almost took out some legs at postage due, but luckily they were all agile enough get out of the way at the last minute.
















A rare moment--Mr. Beveridge swimming. He claims he was just cooling off before the hike up Panther Creek, but I think that flat water was just too much for him.



















Monday we did the "Marathon" Upper, Middle, Lower all in one fell swoop. Don hand paddled the upper--here he is boofing or trying to fly.










Don dropping into Sweets Falls sans paddle.








Darcy doing it with a paddle.



It's true what they say about the great play spots on the Lower Gauley! We were there on a Monday, and had about 10 paddlers to share the wave with. Interestingly, all but 1 of them were from Colorado...hmmm, it must be the off season.












Here is Darcy figuring out the wave.
That little yellow Project sure is a great boat!












DAY 11--UPPER YOUGHIOGHENY...


SEPTEMBER 21st
UPPER YOUGH.

Okay, Okay, so I know we were there on an abnormally crowded day since everyone was stopping here on their way to the Gauley, but holy cow, I've never seen so many whitewater enthusiasts in once place! There were rafters, canoers, and kayakers everywhere. It was great to see so much energy out on the river.
You just had to watch out to make sure that energy didn't run you down if you paused to contemplate rapid for too long or catch a surf wave.







A typical scene here at National Falls. After I got boofed on by an overly enthusiastic paddler, I caught the eddie to watch the fun from the sidelines for a while, and let me tell you, there was plenty of fun...


This is a shot of Don heading into one of the many rapids with a healthy crew of onlookers there to support him. As far as we know, all the paddlers made it off the river in one piece before the water ran out, and everyone headed for the Gauley. This is my first experience with kayaking in the east, and even my experience on the Upper Yough could not have prepared me for what I was about to witness at the Gauley River Festival.

HOLE BROTHERS--WATERTOWN, NEW YORK

SEPTEMBER 17TH--HOLE BROTHERS



After the realeases on the Beaver, we decided that we hadn't quite had enough of Lachine and needed to go back to French Canadian land. But, before heading back north we needed a day of catching up on the internet, doing laundry, renting a storage unit for our extra minivan seats--basically, we needed to bring a tiny bit of organization back to our lives. So, we headed to Watertown, NY, mainly because it was on the way to Montreal, but also because we could get in at least a short surf session after doing all our errands.


We hooked up with Tom, a local paddler, who showed us how it was done. We didn't quite catch on, but still had fun flopping around in the Black River.
After a couple hours here, we packed up and headed for the border. We were scheduled to be at the Upper Yough and then Gauley fest. by September 21st, but that still gave us a solid 2.5 days to work on those big wave moves at Lachine (the nice thing for us is that we still have TONS of room for improvement, but those Projects helped our cause--those things like to bounce)!

After camping in some sketchy places on our first visit to Monreal, this time we decided to splurg on a hotel room. We went to the "other side of the river" as that is where the cheaper hotels were rumored to be, and noticed a couple interesting trends:
First, the hotels were NOT cheap! $90 hurts a lot, especially since we decided to make this expenditure on the very day that the Canadian dollar was making its final climb towards our own faltering US currency. Luckily, parity was not achieved until the day after our hotel spending, but nonetheless, the days of a 60% exchange are long gone. Way to go Canada!
Second, I always thought the French Canadians were fine upstanding people, and they probably still are, I'm just confused about what the hell a "sieste" is. In every hotel we saw, they had advertised on the big street side bill boards siestes for anywhere between $25 and $40. For this price, you get 3 hours in the hotel. Now, really, who is going to pay that much money for a 3 hour nap?

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

NEW YORK--BEAVER RIVER--EAGLE SECTION


BEAVER RIVER—EAGLE SECTION

This release happened in the second half of the day.



The Eagle section is even steeper and shorter than the Taylorville Section. This stretch, rated Class V, consists of 5 drops (if you include the somewhat silly put-in “slide” down the dam). The 3 middle drops are fairly tall slide-type drops, and the last is about a 6 or 7 foot ledge to boof over.




All the drops are fairly straight forward once you’ve entered them.














You can just walk laps on this stretch walking up the slabs of rock on the river left side.
One dude, who was really motivated, got 15 laps in during the 4 hour release—Way to go man!









































There is, supposedly a Beaver River Festival each Labor Day where they also release water on the Moshier Section which is, locals tell us, the true gem of the Beaver River.

Monday, September 17, 2007

NEW YORK--BEAVER RIVER--TAYLORVILLE SECTION

BEAVER RIVER—TAYLORVILLE SECTION

On Sunday, September 16th, there were 2 different releases on the Beaver River.






































The morning’s release was on the section they call Taylorville. This is a class III/IV section according to American Whitewater. It’s a very creeky run, with a number of fun lines to run. Watch out for a deceptively sticky hole in the very first rapid. Who knew 400 cfs could be so powerful? After this, there are a number of slides/boofs, and then you quickly arrive at the take-out. It’s an easy walk back up to the car from the mass of powerlines.
















As far as we could tell, the “benefit” is that the massive series of small dams on the Beaver River has created what they affectionately call the Beaver “River” Canoe route. So, the benefit of hydropower is turning rivers into lakes…I guess.


NEW YORK--RAQUETTE RIVER RELEASE


Raquette River:




September 15th, 2007

After surfing on the Ottawa, we headed south to catch a release on the Raquette River. Those big, roomy creek boats were a treat after cramming ourselves into play boats the last few days. The Raquette River is quite a cool run right in the town of Colton, NY. Unfortunately, it doesn’t run all too often.













It is short, but steep with a handful of super fun rapids.










The first several shots are of the first big falls (some call it Colton Falls, and others call it Monumental Falls). Either way it was big and rocky, but there were quite a few fun lines through it. Don Beveridge is in the yellow boat styling the drop!



























If you are ever in the area while the Raquette is releasing—go—it’s fun!

http://www.americanwhitewater.org/ is the best source for this one.

OTTAWA RIVER--ONTARIO



Our next stop was the Ottawa River. We had a low flow of –2.5, but still managed to wear ourselves out after 7 hours of playboating at Baby Face in McKoy’s Rapid, and then Garborater and Push Button in Lorne Rapid. The Ottawa is a huge and warm river with amazing play features. Even at levels that most people consider bad or too low, we found plenty to keep ourselves entertained.






We spent the morning at Mckoy's rapid
and found nice surfing and some good entertainment there.





The rafters had some fun too. I guess flipping your raft isn’t such a bad thing when the water is super warm and you have a 2-mile long pool to collect gear and people in!


























We then spent the afternoon at Garborater and Push Button. Garborater was a bit flushy, but was still fun to play on!



At the take-out we were treated to a great storm in the farm country that surrounds the river.

ROUGE RIVER--QUEBEC






September 12th, 2007




After 2 months of NOT kayaking, then 2 days at Lachine, we decided we needed to rest our weary playboating muscles, so we headed to the waterfall section of the Rouge River. This run is in Quebec, but just north of the Ontario boarder. Here is a nice sunrise shot of our van close to the Rouge take out (sorry, we are obsessed with our minivan).




Although they call this the 7 Sisters run, there are really only 6 falls in the “waterfall” section (apparently the 1st falls is upstream in the rafting run). We had a flow of 34 CMS and found the drops to be pretty nice. Good potential for surfing in a few of the landings, particularly in the bottom of #5 (#5 out of the 6 sisters). We opted to walk this one, although it is apparently run sometimes. This was the perfect 1-van run as there is an excellent trail that portaging rafters use on river right all the way from the bottom falls to the put in, it took us about 10-15 to walk back upriver.













Again, the best sources for this run were the




This is the drop we didn't like.
It resembled a low head dam too much for me to want to mess with it!

Saturday, September 15, 2007

LACHINE RAPIDS, QUEBEC

Oh Canada!

After spending the last two years in graduate school in British Columbia, I knew that I loved western Canada, and over the past week, eastern Canada has proved to have its share of great kayaking as well.


















Small World Adventure's of the east officially began last Tuesday morning when we launched our kayaks into the Saint Lawrence Seaway and began ferrying over to the great surf waves in the Lachine Rapids. Last Saturday, we were in Ludlow, Vermont for a friend’s wedding. After that, we spent 2 extra days in Maple Syrup country picking up kayaks, and wading through massive amounts of information on the internet about east coast boating. We flew into Boston on Friday night, and by Monday afternoon, we had a sweet Toyota minivan (which we are very fond of), 2 Nomads, 2 Projects and a plan—that night, we started driving for Montreal. Check out www.wavesport.com and www.dagger.com for more info on their great kayaks. Both companies are sporting some of the best play and creek boats on the market right now, and we are lucky enough to be paddling them throughout our tour this fall.


















Without much trouble (but a little bit of fretting after all the bad stories we had heard) we found the parking lot for the Lachine Rapids, scouted out our line towards the surf waves and hit the river.





Although locals told us the river was a bit low, and the wave a bit flushy, we found it to be outstanding. It was, at times, a bit tough to stay on, but overall it ranks in the top 5 waves we have surfed! The only problem with surfing at Lachine is that is really is a pain the…to attain back up. But, a few days of kayaking in this spot, and you’ll be on your way to being in great shape. Sorry the photos suck so much, but the surf wave is a LONG way from the little outcropping of rocks where the photographer had to stand, and there is only so much you can do with a point and shoot.














The best resources we found for all our boating in Quebec were
and