decidedlyodd

Wow, today was a big day. Saturday we headed out for Hico, West Virginia to go rafting on the upper part of the Gauley River. We camped out last night in a parklike campground on the property of the rafting company (we went with North American River Runners), had some dinner, had some beers over the campfire and went to bed. A couple of random grad students from the UNC English Department joined us. They were just walking by, looking for a group’s fire to join up with when they heard somebody say “Top of the Hill”. Of course, that gave us away as from Chapel Hill I suppose.

I didn’t sleep particularly well since the whole place was filled with drinking college students like ourselves. Still, it was up and at ‘em around 7am the next morning. After breakfast, the requisite equipment check out, liability waiver signing, etc. we were on an old schoolbus down to the launch site at the base of the Summersville Dam. The 13 of us went in two rafts along with a random couple from Kentucky who were added on to our group. The guides were experienced and great not only technically, but also were cool guys. There were 5 class 5 rapids and numerous others of lower intensity. We were on the river from about 10 am until around 5 pm, with a big break for lunch at Sweet’s Falls (where we watched rafts and kayaks go through the rapids) and a couple of smaller breaks one for pissing and one for jumping off a 20 foot cliff into the river.

By the end of the day, we were all pretty wiped out, but I think everybody had a good time. Claire, Nico and I all fell out of the boat at various points, but never in any truly serious rapids. A bit disorienting, but I was back in the boat fairly quickly. After we hauled the boat out of the river, we got on a longish bus ride back to camp. There we turned in our equipment and took it easy for a bit before setting out for the drive back to NC around 7pm. We stopped and got some dinner around 8:30 in western Virginia and then were back on the road. I just got home around 12:45 or so.

I didn’t get a lot of pictures since it wasn’t really practical to take my digital camera on the boat. Still you can see me all decked out in my sleek wetsuit,

In fact, I ditched the fleece before departing. It was cold in the morning, but warmed up nicely later in the day. The weather was nearly perfect. High 70s most of the day time with the water around 62F. The guide told us it sleeted on them at this time last year and was quite cold. In the end, I probably didn’t need the wetsuit although it did probably keep me warm despite sitting in water for hours on end. Plus, it kept the sun off my legs.

All in all it was a great trip. I think we’ll probably try to do it again next year! Still, I’m already feeling the soreness in my arms and neck. We’ll see if I get up for class tomorrow or not…