Rafting the Gauley River...

We had a BLAST! Dan Lyke describes it much better than I...

When people talk about the Gauley, they usually aren't talking about the 119 named rapids as much as they are the 5 "big ones".

Insignificant, so named because an early USGS survey team wimped out when mapping the gorge and wrote "No significant rapids above this point" starts the real rush, with a sharp right and a sweeping left-hand turn, terminated by a big undercut rock upon which the video boaters perch to get pictures and lend safety for the commercial trips.

Pillow Rock is next, and a bad entrance here can mean that a fully inflated 16 foot Avon Ranger will get sucked completely under water, crew and all (Seen it happen, wasn't part of the crew). In this case, it's just me nailing the Pillow rock itself, dumping a group of (former?) friends into the Toilet Bowl, with some monster flushing action just below, and leading eventually to the raft perched on top of Volkswagen rock at the bottom.

In Lost Paddle they can't hear you scream. And it's a long scream. A quarter mile of class V+ water, to be precise. From the drop into the Hawaii Five-O waves on, it's non-stop adrenaline.

After several years, Iron Ring still gives me the willies. The result of blasting for logging operations several years back, it consists of some large hydraulics coupled with the sharp tailings of that blasting, which let water (but not bodies) flow through them. To my chicken self more fear than fun, but also a fairly straightforward run if you don't let the fear get the most of you.

Sweet's Falls is a 14 foot drop followed by some instant maneuvering. A common mistake is hitting the hole at the bottom too straight, catapulting the guide over the length of the boat, and, without that expert assistance, sending the crew through the Cracks of Doom. If they're lucky. Many a crew has spent the day waiting for the water to go down so they could peel their boat off of Postage Stamp rock.