Private Boating

I heard a kayaker refer to Ibuprofen as “I’ve been paddling” pills. After a weekend where I did two Upper Gauley trips and a marathon (upper and lower Gauley) I keep needing some of those I’ve been paddling pills. 10 years ago I used to do four marathons in a four day Gauley Weekend, but that was 10 years ago. I made an Upper Gauley trip with Alpine on Saturday and it was an interesting trip. Ronnie the trip leader gave me two “older” men who had never paddled before, one of them was 69 and so big it took two of us to push on the buckles of his PFD (lifejacket) to get them to close. Ronnie told me to just keep them both in the boat. They had no business being on the Upper Gauley, but that wasn’t my decision to make. There were five guests, including the two older fellas and me in the boat and I did take real safe lines all day and no one swam except me. I fell out after Pillow Rock cause I was paying attention to a boat that had flipped and we hit a small rock, which caused me to topple in, I had a very short swim. On Sunday I made a private trip for a friend and he wanted to do the entire river, so we did. Got a late start, we were supposed to leave at 9:00, but I don’t think we got on the water til about 10:00, we still made it all 26 miles to Swiss before 4:00 even though we stayed on Postage Due for 45 minutes and stopped at Mason Branch for a rest room break. We did have an ACE marathon trip setting a good pace for us. They would pass us and then just before a video rapid or just after a video rapid we would pass them. Monday I took a day off work and did another private trip for a friend that works for the retirement board in Charleston. He and his brother have gone with me for four years in a row now, it is like a tradition. We had a good quick trip. We put on about 9:00 and we were back at the Dam about 12:00 and we even stopped on postage due and watched a little carnage for a while. We were able to get back so quickly because I asked for and got permission to park overnight at the place where they towed my truck last time and Sharon helped me with the shuttle. The Park Ranger gave me a pass to put in my windshield so they wouldn’t tow it away and I told him he had better put a date on it or I would be laminating it and using it all the time. (He did.)

Some sad news occurred when I was setting that up on Friday, the ranger said call me back, I’ve got to go, we’ve just had a radio call that there has been another death on the Upper Gauley, the third this year. Turns out it was my company again, ACE and it happened in the rapid they call Lost Paddle. The story I was told is that a boat was pinned (stuck) on a rock and another boat flipped and a guest went under the boat that was pinned and couldn’t get out. It was a seven boat trip and a lot of things can happed to seven boats as they try to negotiate one on the tougher rapids. My friend, Mike Swope and I were on a trip earlier this year and something very similar happened to us, and all I can say is that except for the Grace of God we could have had the same thing happen on our trip. I was the Trip Leader for a seven boat trip and we had a boat up against a rock and another boat flipped against it and two people flushed up underneath the pinned boat, but they got flushed out the front side of the boat. You are powerless to do anything if you are downstream from what is happening except pray and pick up the people, paddles and assorted “stuff” as they float down towards you.

>Sharon spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Clarskburg helping Marci and Tommy get settled into their new home. Then she came back Sunday afternoon and met me at the Summersville Dam, it was incredibly good timing, we had dinner at Mabel’s a nice little truck stop near the Dam. I recommend the White Bean Soup and the long haul burger.

I am not sure that private trips are all that they are cracked up to be. My friends at ACE always call them Pirate trips, cause they believe that you are pirating people away from them. It was a privilege for me to take my Pastor and the evangelist down last weekend (Sept 26) and even though I tried to talk them out of it his son-in-law gave me a $50 tip. We didn’t keep it, but put it towards a picture for the evangelist and in his love offering. Then this past Sunday for the marathon my friend and his crew gave me $40 for the marathon to help “cover” my expenses and take Sharon to dinner. Monday, the four guys tipped me $100 for the quick Upper Gauley trip. But when you add up all the expense and work, washing wetsuits two or three times, loading everything up and taking it to Summersville, the fuel for our two cars, snacks and stuff to take on the river, my time, it really isn’t worth what you get. My pay from ACE for an Upper Gauley is $130 plus normally $40-60 in tips and if I trip lead $20 more, (trip leading is also something that isn’t worth what extra you get) the marathon trip pay would have been $195 plus tips. So maybe they are right to call these trips pirate trips.

It is always a privilege and a joy for Sharon and I to take family and close friends down the river, but it certainly isn’t something I do to make money.I do enjoy sharing the river with other people that enjoy it also.

Didn’t mean to sound so negative about the pirate, I mean private trips, maybe I just need to take a couple of those I’ve been paddling pills.

A View to Eternity

The title come from my thoughts that since West Virginia is Almost Heaven and we ought to keep in mind those things that have eternal value we kinda have a view to eternity. I've been thinking a lot lately about the views that we have here in WV. There are the numerous views along the scenic highway to Snowshoe resort, I drove there recently in order to help with the transportation conference and for almost forty miles along Highway 150 I only saw one motorcycle and one car and that was right at the end of the journey. This road is well maintained and has beautiful scenery, takes your breathe away. As I was returning home that afternoon I saw several Hawks that were flying right even with the highway, one was a real pretty Red Tailed Hawk. That drive was what started me thinking that since this was "almost" heaven we could "almost" see into eternity. I might have been influenced by the Phillips, Craig and Dean CD, it was their "live" album and is very moving. Every time I work or play on the river and there is a difference, the view is amazing, 600 - 800 feet deep in a gorge with beautiful sights on both sides. On one recent Sunday morning trip I saw a large owl on the road to the beach at ACE, several egrets and a blue heron along the river looking for small edible delicacies among the rocks and a bald eagle perched in a tree between Surprise and Big Baloney Rapids. I love doing the early morning trips at ACE, when you are the first one down the river and the wildlife is still out and about. I love the view from Long Point, that is the picture on my Facebook page, my wife and I back in October of 2000. Sitting at Long Point you can hear Wolf Creek running, watch the trains cars with their loads of coal destined for some distant power plant, see the rafters on the New, watch the traffic on the bridge, you can almost hear some kid telling their parents that they see someone out on the rock, sometimes you can look across and see Fern Creek Falls, I'll bet a lot this summer - it has been a wet one. I love the view driving over the NRG bridge, and I get to do that almost daily, I think at times we take that awesome view for granted and can only appreciate when we slow down in order to take it all in. There is the spot along Route 19 just on the other side of Summersville when if you look left there is a break in the trees and ridgeline and you can see all of Clay County with small hilltops and vistas, some of the prettiest sunsets I've ever seen were right there, small moments of time when the conditions were just perfect, a gift from God. Once it was so pretty that we had to get a picture and we turned around and drove back, but in just those 30 seconds it took to turn around the sun was set and although it was still a nice view it wasn't the same view. There is the view along Gatewood road of the three crosses that at times has a beautiful sunset. It does seem as though the views here allow us a small glimpse towards eternity. I can't think of any place that I'd rather live and understand what is meant when folks say, "all this and heaven too."

Never worked and never will

There was a story I always read to students, whenever I got the chance as a Principal, about a cobbler who had the sign up in his shop that said, "Never worked and never will." Turns out the cobbler liked making shoes so much that he didn't feel like it was work to make shoes, he was having fun. I wish all jobs were like that. That is how I feel about my job when I am working on the river. I'm getting paid to do something that I love to do. I worked the job that I love on Saturday for Alpine. We took a group of High School Seniors from a Christian School in Xenia, Ohio down the river and although they weren't the best paddlers they were a nice group of kids and it was a good day. The river was 5.5 feet and rising, it was over six feet by the time we got finished. If a group isn't good paddlers you can sneak almost every rapid and they don't even know the difference. Five - six feet is a high level, but not high enough to be dangerous, just a lot of fun. The river cured by aching back and made me tired enough to sleep well Saturday night.
My back had been stiff all week from working in the garden, that is another job that I love, but my muscles aren't used to working like that. We have a frost warning out for tomorrow morning and after church tonight we covered up all of the young pepper, tomato, pickle, squash, etc, with buckets and boxes. Hopefully that will keep them safe. I think the potatoes and onions will be ok without my help. The potatoes really look good, but I think I planted too many, next year I'll cut back.