The last couple of weeks in West Virginia have been pretty cold, not Canada cold but darn cold! More often than not than not I’ve woken up to fresh snow on the ground and low water levels.

Blunting at the bottom hole of Canyon Doors

Lately most of my days have gone something like this. At around nine my alarm goes off, I ignore it and go back to sleep. Shortly after that I realise I should check the levels, I can do this without getting out of bed, ah wireless! Nothing has been great so I always end up going back to sleep. I usually end up getting out of bed when Bryan Kirk opens my door and yells WHA, (inside joke but this is usually around eleven when he’s getting up) then I start cleaning. For some reason we’ve all chosen interesting activities for when we’re bored and aren’t kayaking, apparently cleaning is my pastime of choice. Brian Jennings’ choice is Donkey Kong Country, which he is now a ninja at and Bryan Kirk’s is playing online chess which should be no surprise to anyone that knows him. After we’ve done this for a while we usually go boating in the mid afternoon. Unfortunately there have been a few days that the roads to the rivers have been too slick from snow and ice to drive on. When this happens Jennings beats Donkey Kong country multiple times, Kirk gets accused of using a computer program to help him win online chess games and I scrub the floors, clean blinds and vacuum until I have blisters…it’s pretty sweet.

Roasting some chicken

When the roads have been good Canyon Doors on the Gauley has been the place to be. This rapid offers multiple play holes that are good at a large variety of levels. My favourite and one of the best holes on the river has to be the upper hole at low water. The lower hole is better at medium high flows and is a faster wave hole that is a great place to work on the difficult hole moves in a less stable environment.

Lil’ bit of offside entry action

West Virginia has gotten a lot of rain lately and all the snow is gone. There should be lots of creeking and high water runs the next few days!

Kelsey Thompson (all photos by Bryan Kirk)