(October 15, 2012)
I started off a new career move with an epic White Water
Rafting adventure! The weekend rafting
trip had been planned by my very close friends Kevin and Rachel who had gone
the year before, and it just so happened to be the weekend after I quit my job
of 10 years to pursue a dream job. They
booked it for mid-September which is the prime time to raft this river. In September and October each year, the
Summersville Dam releases a set amount of water, which happens to be the
perfect amount to turn the Gauley River into world-class white water. In the spring, snowmelt and rains bring the
Lower Gauley to fantastic, high water levels.
So we had been looking forward to this adventure all year!
Kevin, Rachel and Emily picked me up Friday morning for the
4 hour drive to West Virginia where we were meeting a couple other friends,
Dave and Robert. Dave booked a cabin not
far from the rafting company, Ace Adventure Resort, and we
planned on enjoying the evening with some cold beers, good food, a hot tub and
awesome company! We made sure we didn’t
celebrate too much as we were getting up nice and early for a full day of
awesome rapids.
Bright and early Saturday morning the group of us drove to
Ace and signed in, listened to a briefing of the river and safety instructions,
grabbed our gear and got on the bus to be hauled to our drop in point on the
river. I honestly can say I think the
bus ride was by far the scariest I have ever been on. Picture a huge old school bus switchbacking
up a steep, narrow, mountainside with quite a long dropoff…and of course I
happened to be sitting on the dropoff side.
But I survived and it just got my adrenalin pumping even more for the
days’ events.
Once stopped safely, we clambered off the bus and got in our
groups, were introduced to the various river guides, our photo/videographer,
and waited on more instructions. There
were 6 other groups on the trip with us.
Our group of six were on a boat to ourselves guided by Ree, who was a
strong guide with a great personality and sense of humor. We introduced ourselves, had a few laughs, grabbed
our raft and walked it down to the drop in point and off we went!
The Lower Gauley took us about 6 hours to raft down. The 11.5 mile river took us through over a
dozen rapids, all of which were class 3-5’s.
Halfway through we docked on the shoreline and had some lunch and a nice
break to stretch our muscles out and prepare for a few more class 5
rapids. The first rapid took out one of
the rafts, flipped it over with everyone in it, including the guide. Glad I made it through that first one without
a hitch and someone else took one for the team.
Rachel and Dave went swimming as we steered our way through Koontz
Flume. Kevin got Rachel back in the raft
and Dave was picked up by another group then brought safely back to us. Another raft got pinned and flipped during a
class 5 rapid, one got severely pinned on Indecision Rock and it took them over
30 minutes to free the raft. Our raft
picked up 3 of the guys that got thrown out and we docked on the shore while
waiting on the rest of the rafts. We all
safely steered through our final class 5, Pure Screaming Hell, and brought our
raft back to shore where it was loaded onto a trailer. Now the bus ride home wasn’t seeming so scary
this go around, plus they had a cooler full of cold beers for us all waiting to
enjoy the hour long treacherous ride back to the resort.
Once back at the resort we freshened up, got a few more
drinks and some grub while waiting for our pictures and video to be done. They are quite good at fast editing so you
can take your memories home with you that same day. We got to watch a bunch of other groups
videos and chat with the awesome staff at Ace while waiting. Then once back at the cabin, the boys grilled
while us gals prepped the table, made sure beer and wine were a plenty and then
made sure the hot tub was still working ;-)
That night we could really celebrate as we didn’t need to check out of
the cabin till 11am.
All-in-all I had a great time and can’t wait to book again
for next Fall where I’m going to do a Gauley Rafting Marathon and go both Upper
and Lower Gauley (I hear the Upper is far more exciting and double the class
5’s!). And since I’ve probably bored you with words, here are some
pictures that are sure to get your adrenalin pumping!
