Saturday 5-19-01

Andy Reese is waiting for me at the GoMart in Birch River. The last few times he has made the trip over the mountains from Maryland we have had water. Now here I am sitting in the middle of WV 16 near the Big Otter exit of I-79 waiting for the water to recede — Andy, you really overdid it this time. After a half hour delay I met Andy and we looked at the Birch River, Little Birch River, Right Fork of the Holly, and Left Fork of the Holly. They were all high, muddy with debris coming downstream, and rising.

We finally wound up in Holly River State Park looking at the Laurel Fork when we saw some soggy forlorn boaters (Len Miller, Jay Venable, et al) who had been stopped by high water while trying to run shuttle on the Left Fork of the Holly. We commiserated, offered some suggestions for the next day, but misery loves company so Andy and I felt better that we were not the only ones getting skunked.

We finally drove over to Webster Springs and looked at Parcoal Falls shortly after the Webster Springs gauge on the Elk River had peaked slightly below flood stage at 9.7’ and 9,000 cfs. Parcoal Falls was big and a local resident informed us that two groups of boaters had gone by that day. I found out later that J. C. Gould in one group and the Brabecs in another group had no problems at Parcoal by driving left of the big curler/stopper, but the ledges at Cherry Falls caused some carnage. The ratio of miles driven to miles paddled — not good.

Sunday 5-20-01

Boaters who have done the “Three Falls” section of the Back Fork of the Elk River have driven by this gem and most probably have never given it a second look. The next time the Back Fork is a little high for your tastes unload your boats near the confluence of Desert Fork and the Right Fork of the Holly in Jumbo and be forewarned that what you can see from the road is not what you get.

Boaters included Saturday’s Andy Reese and Turner Sharp and were reinforced by John Wiggins, Linda Wiggins, Will Sharp, and Susan Klimas.

Thanks to Butch Brown of Jumbo, we launched on river right from his yard about 100 feet below the confluence of Desert Fork. It also would be easy to put-on about 200 yards downstream where a bridge crosses the Right Fork on the Holly River road (CR 18). The first 1 1/2 miles were class II-III rock garden type rapids. The hardest one had a strainer that we had to walk. Toward the end of this section the gradient temporarily eased up, and several of us noticed that a white Subaru traveling upstream on river right on a private road did an abrupt u-turn and headed downstream. Was he looking for entertainment? Well, he was too polite to admit it, but when we got out to scout a big sloping river wide ledge that dropped 10-12 feet and turned the corner to the left out of sight, there was a look of disappointment when we told him we were going to carry.

From this point and for the next two miles down to the confluence of Grassy Creek it was one slide ledge after another. Some easy and some that made you wonder why you didn’t scout first. Several had head high or higher hydraulics that were not necessarily at the bottom of the rapid. Just above Grassy Creek and within sight of the WV 20 bridge another strainer made us scramble for some last chance eddies and another short carry. Call this two mile section class III-IV. We took out on river right about another mile below Grassy Creek just below another bridge on WV 15 in the town of Diana. This last mile was class II with less Gradient (40 fpm) but some nice play waves. Grassy Creek doubled the amount of flow after it joined the Right Fork.

The first 3 1/2 miles had a pretty uniform 75 fpm gradient. The two mile portion of slide ledges reminded one of the slide rapids on Camp Creek as it empties into the Bluestone, except these were slightly steeper, more complex and much longer. Probably three rapids in the slide section should be scouted. We scouted the first ledge, then walked it, and then wondered hy by the end of the trip. We didn’t but should have scouted a second rapid which caused a swim and the end of the trip for one boater. It started out like the rest of the slide rapids at the top but changed into a boulder-obstructed channel along the river right cliff face with the cliff face making the river take a sharp left turn. Boaters’ lines could be termed from not pretty to ugly. We accidentally scouted third rapid because I was upfront on far river left at the top of a particularly long slide rapid stretching my neck to see what lay below when a tree limb went down my back and under my pfd and caused a flip. Thinking I was going to do a 200 foot slide rapid on my helmet I bailed and went to shore and was much chagrined to see that I swam in flat water and probably had another 10 feet to spare. Anyway, by the time my boat was recovered, we scouted the next rapid and discovered it was another long slide rapid with a large funky hydraulic that was almost parallel to the river. The other option was to paddle a cheese grater slide on river right. Two boaters did and the rest walked.

The Webster Springs gauge was 7.5’ at noon and falling.