With a foot of snow on the ground and heavy rain in the forecast things were looking up in West Virginia. Just as I was getting back from the Wave Sport college tour the skies opened up and the rivers rose to amazing levels. I first came to Fayetteville in 2005 at the tail end of Gauley season and was impressed with the rivers but didn’t think that they lived up to all the hype that they usually get. Now I can see why so many people love this area for paddling and why it is spoken of so highly. High water here is awesome!

Big Bounce at the Dries
The first rain brought up the Gauley and the New to great levels. Five boat hole on the Gauley was on the high side forming a retentive mid sized wave that allowed any of the aerial wave moves. The New is littered with play waves and holes of all shapes and sizes. If you want variety the New is your best bet.

Back Stab at Five Boat Hole

The second rain we got blew the first one out of the water…or should I say buried it in water. With most of the creeks in the area actually being too high to run Mill creek was our best bet for a morning run, then the Dries in the afternoon, I can’t think of a better day. Mill creek was great, lots of variety, a really clean water fall and to top it off a beautiful day.

Mill Creek Falls

The Dries are something that I have wanted to paddle for a long time. You see the put-in waves in tons of videos and magazines and the Americans always blab on about how big you can go on them. As it turned out they ran bigger than they had in years, 73 000 CFS. What surprised me was the run, which was just as fun as surfing the put-in waves. Mile long rapid felt kind of like being in an ocean, big waves would build and crash on top of you sending you from one side of the river to the other in an instant. Probably the most unique part of this rapid was the boils, they were everywhere and they were big. For the most part any boils I have come across in the past have been at the bottom of rapids or along eddy lines but these suckers were everywhere. You’d be riding up a wave that took four paddle strokes to get to the top of and be stuck in a boil the whole time. Maybe that happens all the time here but I haven’t seen it may other places.

I’m off to the North Alabama White Water Festival so stay tuned for new on that event. Special thanks goes out to Bryan Kirk for taking the awesome pictures!

Kelsey Thompson