September/October 2013 - Bluegrass Wildwater Association

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in places you've been many times before. I feel gratefuland fortunate right now.AliDitto that. As I have said many times, Heaven's Gatesrapid is the one that really beefs up as the water levelgoes up on the Lower Gauley. That one and the hole atthe bottom of Canyon Doors in the right channel.Glad you're okay. Let's sit down and have a beer soon soI can hear the minute details. One thing I feel pretty sureof. Both Jeff and Joe probably ran left of the big gate rockon SundayHanley LollerAli, Very glad to hear you are OK.Was the rock you got sucked under the huge one on theleft side of the ginormous hole at the bottom (The heavensgate)? or was it one downstream of that?Chris HOk, I'll give my account of the situation from my perspective.I was off work Monday, which I needed for recoveryfrom a very fun weekend.We let the raft go down heavens gate first. As I wascatching the eddy on river left, just to the front left of thegate rock, I saw the grey bottom of the raft shoot up fromthe hole on the right side of the gate rock. I knew thatthey were all swimming because the raft appeared to becompletely upside down. I was the first down, so I quicklyproceeded to the eddy behind the left gate rock. I startedcounting heads. I saw three swimmers below, and did notsee the fourth. I couldn't identify the swimmers becauseof the shadow river left and I was in the sun. I noticed itlooked like someone was under the raft or in the waterjust below the left side of the raft because there was apaddle blade sticking up in the air just to the left of theraft. The raft and paddle blade washed up on a rock thatwas basically completely under water that was 30 yardsdown stream of the left gate rock and a little river left. Itdidn't look like much, but you could see the water pillowingup and swirling. The next thing I saw was the Paddleblade looked like it got stuck and did a quick violentshudder and then disappeared. I was slowly going towardthe raft that had washed over the boil to the right sideand kept going down. I was following waiting for someoneto pop out from under the raft because that is whereI thought they were hiding and riding it out. Next thingI see is Ali emerge about 20 feet to the right of the raft,you can't mistake that pink helmet with the spikey Mohawk,and of course the first thing I said was are you OK.To which it was hard to hear what she was saying, but Ipicked up that she went through the cave and thoughtshe was going to die. Well I'm pretty thick sometimes,but I picked up that she was in no condition to swim andjust instructed her to grab the back of my boat and gentlykick to keep her feet up and told her that we were ok andthat I was going to get her into the first eddy we couldfind. I didn't know what to say, and learned over the yearsto keep my mouth shut in situations were I typically willsay something stupid or inappropriate. Anyway, after afew minutes and hugs, Ali was back. In the raft and downriver everyone went. It was something I wish to not experienceagain.20Jeff KChris, I don't think the left side of the Gate would be aproblem if you swam there. The hole besides the rock iswhat gets nasty at higher levels and most of the currentfeed into a big rock jumble just left of center maybe 50yards downstream. I would assume any rock in the currentis undercut on the Gauley, but this one also has acrack between the rocks that siphons from right to leftthrough the rock. I've paddled through it a lower levels,but it high water, it isn't where I would want to swim.Larry CableI just reviewed the video of Heavens Help You rapid onthe Gauley River Rapids website. The rocks we are talkingabout are at video markers 55 seconds to about 1minute in the video. The announcer even mentions swimmingright of the rocks. Well at the elevated flows, thoserocks are not visible and that is what Ali swam under andthrough. I will have to make sure and review this after arun at normal flows to make sure this is correct.Jeff KI can't find any good video or photos of the rocks downstreamof the gates or any other information on incidentsthere. I guess it's just not an issue at normal flows. AsI said above it didn't look like much sticking out of thewater. It felt like a crevasse because I could feel rock oneither side of me as I went through it. Most of the rockmust have been submerged since I wasn't anywhere nearvisible rock when I surfaced.
Jeff, I can't express how much I appreciate you towingme in. I rarely lose myself but I think I was pretty muchin shock when you picked me up and I don't think I couldhave done much for myself at that moment.AliLarry, I'm pretty sure the rock that Ali encountered is thebig boulder upstream of the one you're talking about.It's about halfway between the left gate rock and the twobig rocks with the crack between them that you can boatthrough. It's not sticking up high out of the water at 2800and it's just barely sticking up at 5000-ish. It's known tohave some kind of overhanging undercut piece to it. Severalfolks are known to have swum under/through there atone time or another, but that's about all I know. I've seenthat rock at low water (about 1200) but that's been a longtime ago and I don't plan on doing the Lower at that levelever again, so unless I can dig up the video I shot of thattrip....Anyhow, I'm very glad everyone's okay. That area belowHeaven's Gates at that level is a mean swim without therock. The squirrel population in those currents is insane.Swims coming off the left gate rock or out of the hole canbe very deep. Gives me the willies just thinking about it.Yes, Jeff, you're right, and the rocks Larry is referring toare visible just at the very end of that video clip on theright edge of the screen.Hanley LollerSeptember 25, 2013That is pretty wild Ali. The River Goddess protected you.Be sure to pay homage and she will continue to give yousafe passages. Damn that is a crazy swim. We all havethose eventually, so keep your karma balanced!BrentSeptember 28, 2013Glad to hear you're good to go Ali. I had a similarly scaryexperience at lower mash, minus the underwater cave.Stay frostyThe problem is not that there are problems. It's expectingotherwise and thinking having problems is a problem.Glad you popped out OK Ali! That wave - hole powerflipped me in my creeker on Sat and Brit skirted throughit unscathed on Sat / Sun. Usually rolling is a challengefor me in that squirrelly water! I had a similar weird experienceback in the day that taught me a valuable lessonabout the Gauley. I was in my Dancer (old school longboat) and was boating down with Bob McDonough anda gaggle of his posse of squirters. They were playing onan eddy line river right somewhere ... think it was not farabove Sweets and I decided to eddy out across the riverto dump my boat. While trying to get out of my boat Islipped off the rocky shore into waist deep water that wasslow current on the surface near swift current but belowthe surface there was swift current that drew me immediatelyinto a sieve between two rocks that were just underthe surface. I could see there was a crack a few incheswide between them on top but there was a short tunnelbelow that crack that I just fit through. I tried to fight fromgoing into it but the current was surprisingly strong! Iwas glad to pop up a few feet downstream, embarrassedat what had happened and hoping no one else witnessedit. There are many stories of deaths / close calls on theUG involving big and little sieves / undercuts - manyof which (like mine) probably go unreported. The LG isthankfully much safer but the geology is the same so youjust can't be too careful anywhere on the Gauley! I remindBrit every year that if she ends up in the water to just stayin the main flow until she is certain it's safe to approachshore - preferably on the back of someone's boat. Alsoto never allow herself to wash into the face of any rock /bolder and especially between any rock and the shore.WesWow, even that close to shore you can get into some serioustrouble! Good advice on swimming. I usually havea pretty good head when I'm in the water and try to 'gowith the flow' but, like you got caught in a strong currentfunneling into an undercut. I was disoriented after gettingout from under the raft and didn't even see the rock untilI was right up on it. From Jeff's report it appears the raftitself was in the same current. Plain old bad luck on mypart.AliTheodore RubinSeptember 29, 201321
Page 1 and 2: Award Winning Newsletter of The Blu
Page 3 and 4: line that my mentors taught me when
Page 5 and 6: we head into the final major rapid
Page 7 and 8: It started with one of my favorite
Page 9 and 10: Lower that day. There's not much wa
Page 11 and 12: Something to Aspire to!Robert Milga
Page 13 and 14: Off the CuffComments from the Forum
Page 15 and 16: more of it (and you) sits further o
Page 17 and 18: WesOn Dagger's website, the specs f
Page 19: Arlan and Chief's friend, Johnny Ut
Page 23 and 24: escue and recovery of Scott Bradfi
Page 25 and 26: ahead of schedule than she was last

September/October 2013 - Bluegrass Wildwater Association

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