Fluid Kayaks Team

Upper Blackwater; Revisiting a West Virginia Classic

by Bobby Miller

In the state of West Virginia, the Upper Blackwater is as classic of a steep creek as it gets. There are 62 major Class 5 rapids in the 2.5 mile run through a beautiful canyon. The run features more 4-8 foot drops and boofs than any other creek in the area and also runs fairly often. So it's a wonder that it had been 3 years since the Dogg had paddled that run. For years, it was one of my favorite runs and I logged somewhere around 100 runs during the period before 2007. Various things had kept me away: a broken wrist, a case of the gout, a stint in jail for stealing a rye bread loaf from an old lady, and who could forget that bad hangnail in my pinky toe that sidelined me for several months! The point is that the D-O-Double G is back! Cock the hammer cause it's time for action! So, with all that time away, you know that I was excited to get back to this spectacular creek. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder. What? Who says stuff like that?

I saw that the Blackwater was running the morning of June 11 so I talked Sean Chapelle into going out there. It was a little on the low side but there was enough flow and it was a beautiful summer day. I'm well known for boating low flows so who am I to complain? After all, you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Huh? What does that mean anyway? We loaded up the car, dropped my bike at the takeout, and headed to Blackwater Falls State Park to get SIK.

The first rapid is 100 Yard Dash and starts things off with a bang. A 6 foot boof leads to an eddy on the right with a shallow peelout to punch a hole off a 4 foot ledge. A few more 5 foot boofs and a long rocky runout leads to the pool at the bottom. I jumped in my kayak and lit it up like General Electric. I got big launches off of every boof in this rapid. Oh yesh! It was SCHWEEEEET!!!!!!

We continued downstream nailing boof after boof. Soon, we came to the horizon line of the steepest rapid on the run, Tomko Falls. Tomko features two sweet 8 foot boofs with some maneuvering between. We got out to scout and set up for pictures. It is important to have a solid boof stroke when entering this rapid. The shallow landing zones can lead to some stiff pitons that can hurt more than a good kick to the scrotum or, as they say in medical terms, the ball sack. The Upper Blackwater is no place to learn this skill, it should be practiced and perfected on easier runs. Yessir, an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure. What? I hate humanity and their idiotic expressions! But I digress. Back to the rapid, I came down and stomped out two major launches off the drops. They could hear that BOOF sounds all the way down in Hendricks.

Towards the end of the run, the character changes to slides and the largest of these is My Nerves Are Shot And I Can't Take It Anymore. This rapid features 5 good slides back to back with very little room between them. The third one slopes down 8-10 feet and pillows into an undercut cliff on the right. I flew down the slide and carved off the pillow, which shot me at a high speed into the next drop. The next drop has a sweet 5 foot boof on the left. I launched so big that the BOOF sound caused a rock slide throughout the canyon. Several rapids may have been affected by this event. In my 40+ years of whitewater kayaking, I have seen many changes in riverbeds but this one could prove to be catastrophic. Stay tuned to your local news station for further updates.

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After climbing out of the canyon, finishing the bike shuttle and drinking some Brawndo to replenish my elecrolytes, we discussed heading over to the Top Yough for more whitewater action. I was on a tight schedule and probably should have saved the run for another day. But, with the lack of rain we've had this spring, you can never be sure when things will run again. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! I'm not even going to comment. The Top Yough begins with a SIK 20 foot cascade called Swallow Falls. In an effort to save time, we decided to skip the run and just go session the falls. It ended up being a great decision as we got our waterfall stoke on! I hadn't been that fired up since I found my long lost hoodie in my duffel bag a few months ago. I know it my have been irresponsible but I remained stoked for 52 straight hours after dropping that falls and paraded around repeating, "Freakin yes! Freakin yes!" In fact, I'm stoked right now! I'm on the Team Fluid blog!

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What a SIK day! I got to revisit an old run and drop some serious vert in the process. We took advantage of a beautiful day and fine water levels to turn a potentially ordinary day into a spectacular day. And that is what kayaking is all about! Where my homies at? Blow me out shorty!

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I Want To Get High, So High: Adventures on High Ridge Run by Bobby Miller

Nestled in the headwaters of the Potomac River lies the Alleghany Front, an area of steep creeks that is home to some of the steepest runable whitewater anywhere. There are several good runs coming off this ridge but the crown jewel of the area has to be High Ridge Run. Tucked away at the start of the Hopeville Canyon, this stream hardly looks wide enough to paddle at the takeout, much less supporting enough flow to start 2 miles upstream. But for those who tough out the 3 mile hike in with a 1200 foot climb, the rewards include more bedrock slides and waterfalls than you could easily count, flowing through a beautiful gorge. The creek drops 700 feet in the first mile and 500 in the second mile so there is no shortage of action. This creek was explored a few years ago and was kept a secret until recently when a mole within the Dogg Mafia finally delivered a list of names of people with knowledge of the creek. We chose the weakest guy on the list and cornered him. We held him down and gave a purple nurple until he talked. It is an ugly business, really, strong-arming people for our own personal gain but it is a job that the Dogg Mafia is glad to do. The trick is to pick on people who can do you no harm, like that old man in the wheelchair that I indian burned $13.45 out of last week. Now that was good fun! But I digress.

Stinkfoot and I headed out early in the morning to meet up with a group of people that included Scott Anderson, JB Seay, Brenton Petrillo, and Sam Burke. The torrential rains had fallen on top of the immense snow pack that had come down during the winter and every creek we passed along the way was raging. We figured that the only creek low enough to boat would probably be something as small as High Ridge Run. At the takeout, the creek was humming along but looked like it could be manageable. As YOUR kayaking hero, I can't shy away from high water and rough conditions. Afterall, a smooth sea never made a skilled mariner! What? Who says stuff like that? At any rate, we chose to go for it and started the long hike to the top. The weather was chilly so I opted to wear my drysuit for the hike in. Big mistake. It didn’t take long for me to overheat and start sweating like crazy. I knew I was breaking Bear Grylls’ rule of survival, not to sweat but this was getting out of hand. I started getting light headed and hallucinated. I knew I was in trouble when I came upon a clown making balloon animals and a bear riding a tricycle. I figured a break for hydration would be in order at this point.

We finally reached the creek and headed down to the putin. We were joined by a large nucleus of experience creek boaters. Some of the best East Coast creekers were here, guys like Bobby Miller, Jason Beakes, Geoff Calhoun, Nathan Sass, Sam Kane, and the finder of the creek, Mike Moore. Although not super difficult, the creek is small and heads downhill fast, requiring you to run long stretches without stopping. Nossir, even with the many clean drops, the continuous nature of this creek makes it unfriendly to the zinc-faced ham n' egger crowd. Luckily, some people had gone in the day before to put up Orange Flags of Consequence at all the major drops. When kayaking down a stream, it is easy to get into a zone and flow along. However, you see on of those Orange Flags of Consequence and you better break out of your zone and get your game face on. There's no shame in walking when you see one of those flags!

The creek starts with some slides that lead into a 15 foot drop into a boulder pile. This drop had some serious potential for injury and a piton here would certainly knock the beans out of your belfry. We opted to start just past it at the first of a series of continuous ledges. These ledges led to the lip of a beautiful 12 foot launcher. I came down and launched a SCHWEEEEET one landing with such a loud boof that they could hear me down in Petersburg!

We worked our way down through more drops and got out to scout a sketchy 15 foot clapper. The lead in was shallow, the lip was junky, and the landing was all rock. A well placed boof stroke is crucial here as a piton would really knock the jack out of your box! I came down and launched a SIKy landing smoothly on the shelf below, much to the delight of the crowd of hundreds that had gathered on the bank to cheer on the Dogg (and, of course , the uncounted millions viewing from their television sets at home). The ratings were high for this momentous event!

As we continued downstream boofing off more 10-12 footers than I had ever seen on any given run in my 99.99 years on this Earth, I had a good sense of how special this run was. There were so many loud BOOFS! from me landing flat all over the place that the locals were worried that Seneca Rocks might be under artillery fire! A double orange flag let us know that we were at Fantasy Falls, which is the biggest rapid on the run. The first drop is a 20 foot near vertical falls followed immediately by a steep 12 foot slide with tree branches to duck. This is high quality, top drawer stuff in here! Of course, I aced the drop and continued downstream.

More sweet rapids followed by some trees and an orange flag brought us to the X, a steep series of ledges leading to an 8 foot boof to avoid 2 trees that had fallen in across one another in the shape of an x. I launched several SIKy's in the approach and drove hard right acing a righteous boof stroke to put me on the right and in position to duck the tree. Oh yesh! It was NICHE!

We reached the end of the run with a great feeling of satisfaction. The run certainly had delivered the goods and we were stoked. We were so stoked that we started jumping around delivering chest bumps. Finally, one of the boaters broke his sternum and we decided we'd better stop and run him to a hospital.

The next day, we returned to High Ridge to run it again. We were excited that the creek had held and, although low, we had another fantastic day. Afterward, we headed to another secret creek nearby (we'll call it Death Ledge Run for the sake of argument) and fired it up. The run was overall easy but contained a narrow 30 footer that was gorged in and was unportageable (Running Man Falls). I slipped while scouting and nearly slid into the creek so I opted to just run the falls blind (after seeing Eric Ameson paddle off the edge). This may have been a risky maneuver but, I'm a gambler: I know when to hold'em and when to fold'em! What? Who says stuff like that! The falls narrowed at the lip and the water on the right bank was folding back over onto the flow. I came down the approach in the middle and launched a huge boof before getting subbed out in the fold and going deep into the pool. I emerged victorious and excited about firing up another great West Virginia waterfall. The other guys had a good runs as well and we floated down the remaining half mile of Class 2 to the takeout with a great feeling of accomplishment.

As I loaded my car and prepared to head home, I had to smile at what a fantastic weekend it had been. I had done some great paddling in my favorite area of the country and found some new runs. I left the Alleghany Front that weekend with a grin so wide that I had to turn sideways to walk through any doorway for the next week! Best weekend EVERRRRR!!!!!

Hi all,

Let me introduce to you David Bain, our latest addition to the Fluid Team in the UK. David is a talented, up and coming paddler. While his primary focus remains on slalom and downriver competitions at national and international level, David is the perfect illustration of that new breed of competitive paddlers who reckon the benefit of versatility and diversity in whitewater kayaking. Indeed David and his mates can often be seen paddling class IV/V in their Solos. And guess what, we at Fluid Kayaks believe in these youngsters! Here's a complete report from David Baine about the past winter and the road to the slalom and downriver Worlds.

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This winters training has gone really well. I have progressed rapidly, and am looking forward to racing this summer aboard. I have been selected to go to Serbia for the European championships as part of the GB Junior Wild Water Race team, where I will be competing in Sprint and classic events against the best down river paddlers in Europe.

Down river selection During the week leading up to our trip to Scotland more than 3 feet of snow fell across Tayside, making out travel plans somewhat arduous. However we had a trouble free journey on a sunny Friday morning. When I got to Tully, the river was rather low; the snow had not yet started to melt enough to make a significant rise on river levels. I travelled up stream to get to the start of the race where the snow built and built. This made for fantastic views and scenery which made racing, a low river, far more enjoyable. On approach to the main rapid the speed of the water increased to the first drop, after taking a fast line, narrowly missing a hole, I skirted down the left side of a large wave train. At the end of the rapid the last long sprint of 300 meters came, as the sprint ended I concurred the final drop and crossed the line. I finished as first junior, and showed a very positive time compared to other senior athletes.

Slalom Junior selection

race 1 The first slalom selection was held in Bala in Wales. A very technical course was put up and I was excited knowing that it had some harder moves to test me, and my competitors. My first run was fantastic. I kept a very fast pace down the upper section and executed all the moves almost perfectly, as I came down the final drop I caught a edge and had to paddle back for a gate, before doing the few final gates. All the pressure was on run 2: the nerves were tense at the start line, however I kept my lines from the first run, and picked it up for the final move. After correcting my line and edge position from the first run, the last big move went perfectly, and the run finished off with a positive sprint. This run put me as second junior in the first race, a fantastic achievement.

Race 2 Race two was much more of a physical course, where I knew I would be doing well to be near the top. I had a reasonably quick run, but it was not quick enough to get real counting points. Race Three Now all the pressure was on the final race. I knew I had to race well to get on the team so I was pretty nervous. The course had a few very technical sections, where I knew if one move went wrong the race would be over. My first run was fantastic. I sprinted from the very start, performing almost every move without time loss. I finished the run in first place for junior selection, and 5th overall. I knew at this point that I had a good chance of being on the team for the summer, after a slower second run: I waited anxiously as the final juniors crossed the line. I still had the fastest time and gained myself a place on the junior team for the Worlds and Euros. I was ecstatic.

Ten weeks till the worlds I now will be training very hard in the lead up to the Junior World Championships in Foix and hopefully be fast enough to gain a medal. All I can do is train hard and see what comes. I would like to thank my coach, Jim Jayes for all the support he has given me this winter and preparation at races as well as Fluid Kayaks, NRS, White Water Active, Eddylines Llangollen and Lloyds TSB

Thursday afternoon in Bergen Norway, sun was shining, the birds are singing and it was beginning to feel like spring. Of course I was stuck in the office, trying to finish up a few last things before I took off for a long weekend rally up North. The X-Creek race (part of the X2 festival) was taking place on Friday and I was hoping for some training runs to shake off the winter rust. This meant sneaking out of work early as it was a 5 ½ hour drive to Hellesylt from Bergen. When I got home the other Basso had packed the car and loaded the boats ....so we were off.

A beautiful and efficient drive meant passing everyone in their expensive Audi's that never see 5th gear. Finally we pulled up to the Byggdelva hidden at the end of one of Norway's most beautiful fjords. It is eight in the evening and the sun has dropped behind the mountains. The light is fading to greys and blues, the temperature is dropping and that hard to shake winter chill creeps back into the air. Mark is still keen so after quick walk along the river to scout a few rapids we get back to Norway whitewater.

A brief cold shock hits me when I seal launch into the river, time to wake up and get the muscles moving…this is only my second time in a kayak this year. The weather has been cold, it has been snowing instead of raining and the snow pack in the mountains this year is very low … all of this has led to a slow start to the paddling year. But it all comes back very quickly and I exult in the feeling of moving water beneath the boat. The surrounding mountain peaks rise sharply from the valley and tower menacingly over the river. Although they are still mostly covered with snow, cliff walls jut out like black chocolate chunks in vanilla ice cream. I breathe in deeply; the crisp clean air fills my lungs and clears my head. I put my paddle blade into the water and pull myself towards the first slide.

The Byggdelva race course is short but very sweet. A couple hundred meters of slides and boofs, finishing off with a small horseshoe waterfall. The water is low but this makes the run more technical and a real race for the time clock. To avoid hitting a few grabbing, rocks you had to maintain precise control of the kayak at all times. I come off the water with a big smile on my face, looking forward to racing the next day. Back down the road to tents and beer as the hardy Norwegians from all over the country start appearing late into the night.

Friday morning I wake up and something just doesn’t feel quite right, I stick my head outside and immediately decide that it is way too early and I need to go back sleep for a couple hours. Maybe what I saw will just be the remains of a half remembered nightmare. No such luck…the weather is horrific; fog and clouds cover the handsome peaks that greeted us last night, a combination of snow and rain is falling to the ground and the wind blows the warmth right out of you. I could feel the motivation draining out of me as I stared out of the tent.

A couple hours in the campsite, eating breakfast, drinking coffee and catching up with good friends managed to restore some of my motivation and I was further revitalized by the sun that broke through when we arrived at the put-in. As the afternoon progressed the mountains came out from the wall of clouds, blue skies were once again becoming visible and the sun warmed the river bed.

In the end the race went off with big smiles throughout, thanks to some great organizing and a better-late-than-never sun hovering high above the looming peaks. Two runs, best combined time wins. Below are some pictures from the race. I was happy with my runs and came in second in the women’s category. Good times had by all. Then it was off to Østra and to the bar for the prize ceremony and some sweet tunes.

Thanks to Joar Wæhle, Øyvind Festø and Torbjørn Sewati for putting together a great race. I will be back next year.

Mariann Sæther

Benjamin Hjort

Torkel Gjeraldstveit

Martin Vollen

Dag Sandvik

Mark skiing down to watch the freeski competition on Saturday

Hey All,

So its been awhile since I have checked in, Sorry about that! I have two updates coming: Northern Sumartra (a kayaking trip I did with Joel Kowalski and my Indonesian friends at Tritaseta) and an update from the previous Kimberley Expedition that along with Anthony Yap I organised an international team of 11 to paddle the Fitzroy River - The largest river in Australia. This project is still taking up a large percentage of my time and in the coming months I am sure you will here all about our trip.

Only a week or two after getting back from the Kimberley Odyssey I headed up to Far North Queensland to catch the tail end of the Australian tropical "Wet Season" I have never paddled in this area of Australia before (4000km North of where I live) and I was very impressed. It's steep and there was allot of water. The rain gods came through with extremely high water levels for the time of year. I was lucky enough to get down a couple of the classic's at possibly the highest flows every paddled.

I am not claiming any First Descents but there was a couple of drops at the put-ins for the some classic day runs that according to the locals haven't been paddled before. Who knows.

After two weeks in the tropics, 1 dislocated shoulder, 2 broken boats, and a snapped paddle I will let the photos do the talking. I cant wait to head to Cairns next season for some unfinished business. Thanks to Jesse James and The Tazy boys for a sweet trip.

Cheers

Lachie

Photo: Sam Trgenza

Note the sketchy log on river right Photo: Sam Tregenza

Photo: Lachie Carracher

Photo: Leon Bedford

Photo: Will Hughes

Paddler: Will Hughes, Photo: James Thorp

Myself about to snap my paddle, scouted this a buncg before on one of the last days a bucked up, possible First D Photo: Allison Sturges

Photo: Leon Bedford

Photo: James Thorp

Photo: Lachie Carracher

Photo: Lachie Carracher