Lower Gauley River, WV

Ivan Jager, Brian Kish, Jeff Johnston and I headed to Summersville, WV on Friday for the largest whitewater festival in the world- GAULEYFEST. GauleyFest is an annual festival that draws thousands of whitewater kayakers, rafters, and other whitewater enthusiasts. The parties are enormous, but the whitewater is even bigger- the Gauley River, fed by scheduled releases from Summersville Dam, has consistent Class V water on its Upper portion, and consistent III-IV water on the Lower portion. We did the lower portion both Saturday and Sunday.

The quote of the trip was heard the very first night we got to the festival. I asked Brian while walking through the festival campground, "Will most people here be doing the Upper or the Lower Gauley tomorrow?" A random fellow we had no association with helpfully chimed in, "Most people here are doing LSD, man." Thank you random man.

We awoke at 7 am both days and did the Lower Gauley with folks from the Three Rivers Paddling Club (TRPC) and from Pitt's outdoors club, most of whom Brian knew. The water was ENORMOUS. Specific examples include: 5 boat hole, a hole which 5 boats could surf (easily) at a time; Koontz Flume, essentially a class IV highway of whitewater; Lower Mash, a 8' tall wave that we attempted to surf (check if the videos we took are up); and Pure Screaming Hell, a class IV rapid with a GIANT hole at the bottom which Ivan attempted to defeat (keyword: attempted) (again, check to see if video is up). All in all, the water, for Jeff, Ivan, and myself, at least, was some of the biggest we had ever seen. 11 miles of paddling a day, a 3.5 hour drive there, and a giant festival of Dionysian hippies and free kayaking promotional deals all made a great weekend :) Return to Pittsburgh was approximately 9 pm Sunday night.

-D. Stone

Allegheny River, PA

Met up with David Degerome and Laura Lindzey at the storeroom at 1:00 pm that afternoon to load up a couple of whitewater kayaks to do some flatwater training out at the backchannel of the Allegheny River at the new Three Rivers Rowing Association boathouse near Washington's Landing. After checking to see if they were up for it, rather than just going up anddown the backchannel, we went up and all the way around Heers Island, about a 1.8 mile trip which we did in about an hour and a half.

The objective was to get people comfortable in their boats, work on their paddle strokes, and to develop some boat control. Everybody did really well on this. The section outside of the island, out in the main channel, was a little interesting as there was quite a bit of powerboat traffic on the river, and some of them were kicking up pretty good wakes, giving us some small waves to have to deal with as well.

Got back to campus around 3:20 - didn't take any pictures. Map of the location and approximate track are here.

-T. Marz

Lower Yough, PA

The Lower Yough (LY) is a classic class III run that is less than 1.5 hours away from Pittsburgh.  We put on the river at 11AM and didn’t get off the river until 5pm!!  That is the longest LY trip I have ever done!  Everyone had a great day on the water.  We played and surfed for a long time in Entrance.  David and Jeff both were able to get their flat spins to work at Donut Hole and Nemo’s Hole.  Everyone had great lines trough Dimple Rapid and we got to witness a lot of raft carnage.  We probably stayed at Swimmers’ Rapid for 2.5 hours!  We were able to have a ‘party wave’ with 5 people in it!   We had a blast at Swimmers’.  When we got off of the river, we even found someone to shuttle 2 of our boats to the car!  It turned out to be a great weekend of kayaking.

-B. Kish

Savage River, MD

The Savage is a dam-controlled river that only has 3 water releases a year.  It is a special river because it is essentially one long 5 mile long rapid without any pools in between.  Therefore, a strong roll and boat control are essential.  The release lasts from 9am-3pm and a shuttle is provided, this allowed us to make three laps on the river.  The river is a cold 45 degrees because the water comes from the bottom of the reservoir.  I think that Ivan was the only person on the river who was not wearing at least a paddling jacket!  We all had a great day on the river!  We only had 2 swims, and that is good because it is really hard to catch a swamped kayak on this river!  Unfortunately, David broke his new paddle that barely even had an scratches on it!  Matt got to hand-paddle the rest of the river. After we got off the river, we all camped out at Piney Mountain Campground near the Upper Yough Put-in.

-B. Kish

Early Kayaking Trips

Miscellaneous photos from trips taken between 2005 to 2008.