Ohiopyle

We arrived in Ohiopyle around 1 on saturday. The clinic was supposed to start at 2 but it was 3:30 before we finally got to put on. Apparently they had about 150 people sign up for the clinic and although they had a good number of instructors it took a while to get everyone on. Clay Wright was leading everything and he started off by talking about the falls and giving tips. We all cramed onto the obeservation deck and stood there in the hot sun while he discussed how to run the falls. The advice was good but nothing that i didn't already know. He explained how to line up for the lead in rapid, where to punch the hole and how to time your final boof stroke. He also discussed proper landings, how not to hurt your back, what to do if you did end up under the curtain, etc. It was hot as hell standing there and i couldnt' wait for him to stop talking and just let us go paddle.

Finally he explained the rapids above the main drop. First there is an easy two foot ledge. However it is one of the biggest hazards on the river. The center has a mean little horseshoe hole that may not look like much but apparently will hold you mercilously. We were instructed to run the drop off a nice easy part of the ledge well to the right of the horseshoe.It didn't seem like you could go too far right and so the danger spot was easy to avoid. The second drop consists of a easy class III rapid to the left and a nice 4 foot boof to the right.

After the speech we got broken up into groups of 15 (this could have been a little better organized as we basically had to latch onto one of the instructors in order to get into a group, but i guess they probably didn’t expect that many people). One group went at a time. The clinic was meant to be run in such a way as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. AW wanted to show everyone concerned that this is a normal rapid and that it should be oppened up for legal runs on a regular basis. Therefore there was no mass safety set. Each group set their own. There were no bibs or stop signs to tell you if it was safe to go. One person stood at the top of the drop and signaled everyone by holding out his/her arms (up for go, out for stop) if the drop was clear of the previous boater. I think this was a good way to do it but with that many people it was far from natural. For at least the first couple of runs there was a big crowd of boaters waiting in the set up eddy. This thinned out with time as people started finishing up their runs.

Overall it seemed like the clinic went pretty well. I certainly hope that the powers that be were satisfied with the result. Unfortuantely there was a good bit of carnage though. There were number of swimmers at the base of the falls which is to be expected. However there were also several swims above that really shouldn't have taken place. In his initial speech Clay let everyone know that although Ohiopyle was a relatively safe rapid that this clinic was intended for experienced boaters. He said that it was fine if this was your first waterfall as long as you felt confident in your ability. He said that if you didn't think you could make it down the lead in rapids then you should seriously reconsider runing it. Clearly a few people did not heed this advice.

As we were putting on for our first run i looked down and saw someone right above the horseshoe! Bad enough that he was there but he was backpaddling!!!
My immediate thought was: "You idiot!!, its too late! you're commited now, what are you doing backpaddling? you should be paddling hard forward to get as much speed to punch it as you can!!!”. But i moment later i realized why he was backpaddling as two boats and two swimmers came out of the hole. A completely ridiculous scene. Things like this are not going to help with the access issue. The danger of the horseshoe was drilled into our heads by all the instructors, no one should have been anywhere near it. But with a crowd that big some people were bound to miss that key piece of instruction. Additionally there were several pins in the rapids above the main drop, one boat ran it sans boater, one person ran the main drop upside down...

So anyhow after the mess of swimers was cleared up we finally got to put on. Ran the first ledge with no problems and found the 2nd to have a pretty sweet little boof. Not counting the falls itself that is probably the most fun little rapid on the entire Lower Yough! Finally we got down to the set up eddy. Mark and i decided to get out and take a look for our first run. When you are sitting in the set up eddy getting ready to run the falls all you see is a horizon line. There are really very few markers to tell you where to go off to hit the tounge. Even after looking at it from the shore i had to watch a few people run it from the eddy to see where to go (there are some partially submereged rocks and a little tiny curler that are visible from the top but you can’t really line up too well till you get right up to it).

The lead in rapid right above the falls is actually pretty impressive given that it ends in an 18 foot drop. You go down a green tongue / slide surrounded by some decent sized curlers. At the bottom of the tongue is the hole. Although not all that big it does slow you down a bit so you have to be prepared for it and be ready to padde through and not loose too much speed. The best way to run it is on the right. The left side of the drop is where the meanest part of the curtain is so you don’t want to be over there. If you go to far right it is easier to make your way to the left. But if you go left of the hole its really not possible to make your way back to the right.

On my first run i started off on the far left side of the tongue at the top and angled right to punch the right corner of the hole. Unfortuantely my angle was a little too sharp and i ended up hitting the curler above the hole which slowed me down and threw me off a bit. I also wasn’t expecting how far off the drop was from that hole. Looking at it you think the drop is going to be right after you go over the hole. But the actual distance is a bit more. Additionally the main drop isn’t 100% vertical. After you go off the lip the water arcs off before the bottom drops out. So you really have to time your final boof stroke for when you clear the arc. My boof stroke wasn’t timed very well since i wasn’t quite prepared for this. All the drops i’d run before (Wonder Falls, Moats, Valley Falls) were much more straight forward: paddle across a flat pool, reach the lip, take a stroke, and you’re done. no lead in rapid to deal with. Anyhow i didn’t entirely pencil in buy my entry angle was pretty steep. I hit the water and was thrown way back on my back deck. Immediately flipped, waited for things to calm down and rolled up. Felt kinda silly but knew what i’d done wrong and was ready to go back up and fix it. I didn’t get the full working in the curtain though, i was just on the edge of it and it didn’t feel bad at all.

After the first run with the instructor we were allowed to form our own groups of 4 or more and paddle on our own. Mark and I met up with Andre and Anatoli and did three more runs. On my second run i lined up much better on the lead in rapid and got in a good final stroke. I over did it a little and landed really flat. I’m sure it looked fairly pretty but it did hurt. My back was sore for a while. The next two runs were better though. On the last run i landed well but was a bit close to the curtain and paused too much instead of paddling out immediately. I got surfed on the boil off to the left and then flipped on the seamed formed by the merging of the flow from different parts of the drop. Not a big deal though.

After our fourth run we exchanged our creek boats for our playboats, grabbed some hot dogs from the snack booth and went for a quick run of the loop. It was nice to stretch out with some flatwater cartwheels and a leisurely float.

Ohiopyle Falls is a fun drop and great practice for running waterfalls with a lead in rapid. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t run a waterfall before though. There’s a good bit involved and having some prior experience is a good idea. I’d have to say that it is the hardest i’ve run so far.

Thanks to Hector and boaterphoto.com for all the great pictures!

Summer on the Lower Yough

Killer Falls

Mixed in with our many Upper Yough trips we also tried to include our beginner friends Juliana, Rich and of course Sylvia by taking them to the Lower Yough. The first trip was for Josh's birthday party in June where most of them rafted. After getting a look at the river they were ready to try it out for themselves. We did one run with just Jules and Rich and Josh and Sylvia joined in for another. Only a moderate amount of carnage occured and overall the trips went well. We're hoping to get them motivated to get out there in the spring so they can eventually start joining us on more exciting trips!

A little caving on the LY

Juliana at Swimmer's

LY Takeout

Mark and Juliana

Rich and Juliana

And of course what Lower Yough Trip would be complete without a proper seal launch?

Ohioplye Beatdown

I joined Mark Saturday night so that we would be ready Sunday morning to do our volunteer work at the Ohiopyle Over the Falls Festival. We put in our four four hours which mostly meant we sat around and talked to people while wearing our falls fest t-shirts over our sweat shirts (it was cold!). I, for the record, was too lazy and to self conscious to run the falls in front of the big crowd that had gathered. After his successful hand paddling run of the UY the previous day, Mark decided to go ahead and do it again. Below is his account of the run:

While thinking about it I got the image of the picture I wanted taken of me running the falls (they had a photographer taking shots right below the falls): boat completely vertical looking at the camera with my hand paddles making moose ears and a stupid expression on my face.

After getting in the boat and running the short, but pretty fun, entrance rapid I got to the large eddy above the falls and decided that it was pretty blind from up there (there’s a rapid right above the falls that hides the falls from the eddy above). So I waited and watched where another person went over the horizon line into the rapid above the falls. After getting the go signal I peeled out and went over the drop, I remembered from looking at the shore that I would want to maintain a little left angle and punch a hole just before going over the drop so I did that and the next thought I had was…..I need to make sure I get my shot.

So without any concern about the landing or running the drop correctly I stopped paddling (no boof or control stroke here) and just stuck my paddles next to my head and pushed the boat completely vertical! We got a video, and it’s a beautiful image, me sailing out into the air, paddles next to my head, and boat penciling in hard right into the curtain. Slamming into the water I went deeeepp….I had a moment to reflect and realize that I probably should have at least given a moments thought to how this plan was going to affect my landing…but too late now. I came out pretty much how I went in…vertical right under the curtain.

The hole below the falls began kicking me to river left and I felt a moment of calm so I decided to roll up, just as I was almost completely up I slipped under the second heavy section of water coming over the falls, feeling no unlike a being hit by a bag full of foam covered hammers this one imploded my spray skirt and ripped one of the hand paddles off of my hand. The boat instantly filled with water and I immediately disappeared into the foam. As I again went down I was laughing the whole way realizing how hilarious this must look from the shore. Based on the video I was down for about 13 seconds before the float bags in the back of the boat finally brought me back up to the surface, my first great mystery move, I may yet be a squirt boater!

This time luckily I was beyond the falls, with my one hand paddle and water laden boat I rolled up to many cheers. On the video you can hear one guy on the observation deck yelling “oh my god he’s still in his boat, he’s still in his boat!”. I got the pleasure of waving and laughing as people around cheered me as I SLOWLY paddled 60 gallons of water to shore. I even managed to get my other hand paddle back! So my first priority was…the shot! I had to see it! It was perfect I knew it would look awesome. So we waited until they had processed the pictures and we went to look. After about 20 minutes of going over all the pictures….and going over them again…..and again, I found out there was no shot…he had missed me! In all my glory (and I’m told the only hand paddler that day and one of two for the entire weekend) penciling into my certain beatdown it would have been beautiful! But alas it was not to be! I got a video so at least there’s graphic evidence of my beating complete with gasps from the crowd, but nothing to hang on the wall! Just my luck!

-Mark

View the VIDEO here (warning: 14 MB)

Mark post run - still in his boat

New River Nap

Two weeks after my first run of the Upper Yough, we planned another trip to the Lower Yough. I invited Mark once again but was sure he wouldn't be intrested in a third weekend on the LY. To my surprise he was more than willing....

Josh was planning on taking Sylvia on another rafting trip (she had thoroughly enjoyed our run down the Upper Yough in July and was ready to get out again). Ian also brought his then girlfriend; Minh. Additionally the newbies that we were supposed to take the week before came along. They chose to hire a guide instead which was relief as Josh was going to be rafting and the rest of us didn't really have a desire to play tour guide (turns out this group was not at all prepared for the LY, one person broke her paddle after the first few rapids and ended up walking out at the loop takeout, the rest of them invited themselves onto the raft).

I decided it was a good time for my friend Anthony to do his first LY run and drove up with him to Ohiopyle. Josh rafted with Sylvia, Minh and the other girls while Mark and I led Anthony down. Ian kayaked but hung out with the rafters as much as possible. Meadow run was pumping in some extra water above Entrance so the level was a bit higher than normal summer flow. Anthony did well and everyone had a good time.

Me and Mark

Rafters

Mark at Swimmers

Me

Rafters

Raft eating kayaker

Takeout

Oh and... Suzi had found this ridiculous monkey tie for Josh and asked me to give it to him that weekend. We all decided he needed to raft with it on. He thought it was only appropriate to wear a button down shirt as well....


That night Ian, Minh, and Anthony headed home (we also parted ways with the other newbies) while the rest of us headed down to Fayetteville to run the New. Josh had borrowed some river boards for him and Sylvia and had invited me to join them. I asked Mark to come along as well but doubted that he'd want to do the long 4 hour drive up to Ohiopyle and then drive another 3 hours all the way back down to the New (which was only 2.5 hours from his place in the first place). But once again to my surprise he was up for it...

I rode with Mark on the way to the New and we talked the whole way. We'd been emailing a bit over the past two weeks and i was starting to realize just how much liked him. We camped at the Canyon Rim Ranch once again and stayed up most of the night talking (yes really just talking!!!). The next morning Josh had pancakes cooking when we woke up.

The New was very low, zero feet. A good level for Josh and Sylvia to river board but fairly slow for us. We were so exhausted that we didn't mind the leisurely pace. I actually took a short nap when we stopped along the way. It was fun watching the two of them bobbing around at the surface in front of us. It was a great day. I rode home with Josh and Sylvia looking forward to the next trip with our new team member...

Sylvia river boarding Middle Keeney

Nap time

Team Natural Selection

The Richmond trip started a long list of summertime runs. During the week we paddled on the Potomac, running Mather Gorge and playing at MD chute as much as possible. Suzi joined us for weekday paddling and the weekends we stayed local and Ian mostly came out for weekend trips. With all the silliness and goofing off that ensued we dubbed ourselves Team Natural Selection, or Team NS for short.

We climbed up to Great Falls to run O-Deck rapid, ran Canal Falls (Josh backwards of course), played in the cave on Difficult Run at low water, boogie boarded the Potomac gorge down from S-turn at 4.5 feet, and jumped off the 40 foot "jump rock" on the gorge. It was great fun. Josh even had stickers printed for us... yes we're a bunch of dorks!

Me with my Team NS sticker later in the year

Early in the summer Josh, Ian, and I paddled the Shenandoah Staircase (which we vowed to only return to at high water!), Difficult Run (I walked the canyon section), and the Stony River to Kitzmiller section of the North Branch Potomac. I was quickly working my way up to more difficult runs with no problems whatsoever.

Suzi joined us for a few more Lower Yough trips (all much less eventful then our high water run). Josh would sometimes bring his dog, Turnup. On the long drives we would work on crossword puzzles and plan our day. Josh cooked great meals. We often had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and/or pancakes for breakfast. It was great having such a fun group of friends to hang out and paddle with.

On the way home we'd often have dinner at Uncle Tucker's, a favorite stop for boaters. Uncle Tucker's was conveniently located right off of I-68 outside of Cumberland and just about half way home from most western MD/WV/PA area rivers. The food and service was mediocre but they did have good beer (well so i'm told anyway) and good dessert. The outdoor patio was a great place to hang out after a long day on the river. Sadly we recently (2006) discovered that Uncle Tucker's has closed its doors and the building is for sale. Hopefully a new owner will once again provide us with a great post river pit stop... and maybe better food.

I also got a new waterproof digital camera so we could document our adventures...

Josh and Ian - Mather Gorge

Suzi running Canal Falls

Me running Canal Falls

Josh running Canal Falls

Me surfing at MD Chute

Jump Rock

Suzi jumping off "jump rock"

Play at Difficult Run

Josh and Ian running Difficult Run

Josh about to run main drop on Difficult Run

Josh running main drop on Difficult Run

Me in cave at Difficult Run - low water

Josh in cave at Difficult Run

Me and Ian exiting cave at Difficult Run

Me at MD chute

Josh running O-Deck

Josh and Ian at Great Falls

Josh and Ian at Harper's Ferry

Ian very happy we didn't run the middle channel (Kitzmiller run)

Me and the boys on Stony River

Stony River - Team NS Style

Me and the boys - put-in Stony River

Cumberland, MD

Uncle Tucker's

Me at Ohiopyle Falls, Lower Yough

Me at Swimmers, Lower Yough

Me and Ian at Swimmers

Camping at Ohiopyle

Camping at Ohiopyle

Railroad - Lower Yough

Josh and Suzi at LY Take Out

Josh and Ian at Swimmers

Josh and Ian at Swimmers

Me and Suzi on LY