Monday, May 21, 2012

Saturday April 21: Wavehopping on the North Branch of the Po


This weekend marked the second water release of the Bloomington dam, on the North Branch of the Potomac.  Upon Tom's advice, the Wavehoppers headed to Barnum, WV to train on this classic Wildwater run.  The Cheat being too low to be run in our boats, the timing was perfect.

After getting only slightly lost, Sandrine met with Thomas and George before heading to the take out.  There, they found some familiar faces: the LAKS Cheat Lite group, lead by Hollie, was also there to enjoy this nice Class II/III run.

The team geared up for their first "classic wildwater run" and Thomas drove us and our pile of Wavehoppers to the put-in.
 


There we met again with Hollie, who was very familiar with this river and gave us a few pointers about where to put-in. She also introduced us to Kurt Smithgall, who paddles on the US Wildwater team.  He was there for the day, doing loops on the upper part of the run and biking his own shuttle.  Kurt nicely offered to show us the lines on this short section.  We carried up about a half mile, put on and... tried to keep up with him while he was "taking it easy".  We left him at the end of this top section and finished the run by ourselves, paddling steadily and constantly.

At the take out, after refueling with our favorite healthy food (Yes, that includes Pringles) and a deep reflection on the most efficient ways to run shuttle, we found a nice crew of gentlemen who agreed to take Thomas back up to his car.  How could they not when Thomas looked like this:

Thomas most convincing look to find a shuttle ride.

We shuttled for a second run and waited for Kurt to be back to the put in to start our second run with him.  In the meantime, the guys decided a little rest was in order and what is more comfy than a Wavehopper for a nap??
 
A bed of nails is George's second favorite for a power nap.

We started our second run as soon as Kurt came back.  After a few miles, Kurt, who was paddling at a "leisurely pace" dropped out of sight.  We paddled paddled paddled! So hard that we finally caught up with him (Yes we did!!)... OK, OK, we found him in an eddy, where he stopped to do a little wave surfing, so what? 

Overall, this run was different from anything we had paddled so far: continuous class II/III with no major rapids, allowing for regular pacing and continuous paddling. We all had a good time on what was our first classic wildwater training.  Thanks Tom for encouraging us to do this! :)

 

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