Fluid Kayaks Team

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!!!!!