Upper Gauley vs. Russel Fork
Douglas Jackson
My brother decided not to go - so we are going to do
some tougher stuff.
Which is harder the Upper Gauley or the Russel Fork?
As far as I can tell they will both be running this
weekend.
Thanks in advance.
--
-Doug
Keith Ferguson
Russell Fork is a tougher run - 180 f.p.m in the canyon section. Rapids are;
Tower Falls
Fist
Twist -n- Shout
Triple Drop
El Horendo
S-Turn (Climax)
A real short run (4 miles) but the shuttle is easy. I was able to do it twice
in one day this past Sunday. The Upper Gauley is a great run, but the Russell
Fork is more creeky.
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Chris Bell
> My brother decided not to go - so we are going to do
> some tougher stuff.
>
> Which is harder the Upper Gauley or the Russel Fork?
>
> As far as I can tell they will both be running this
> weekend.
>
Funny, this sounds like the conversation the buddy I went up to the
Russell Fork with this weekend and I had on our way back. Our
conclusion was the Russell Fork has easier lines, put the penalties
for screwing up are much greater. Comparisons are a little strange
because the Russell Fork at 860 cfs feels like a creek while the
Upper Gauley at 2800 cfs is definately a river. If I was you, I'd
do like most folks and get comfortable on the Upper before trying
my hand at the Russell Fork. I know of at least one party of Upper
Gauley regulars who took their first Russell Fork trip Saturday and
decided once was enough...
What makes the Russell Fork a run with consequences is its amazing
undercuts. The sandstone forming its gorge is quite soft and layered.
The force of the river has cut out significant amounts of those parts
of the walls just under the water's surface. The most undercut places,
naturally, are those with water rushing up against them. This weekend,
the undercut next to Fist was expecially hungry, eating at least two
rafts, an open canoe and a kayak. The kayaker's experience was
especially scary, lasting about 20 minutes in a near-head under water
state. To extract her, fellow netter Chris Hipgrave was lowered just
above the water's surface from above, where he was able to assist the
victim in tying a rope around her waist. Yanking her out was very
painful as her legs were trapped in her boat, but the life-or-death
situation she was in made breaking her legs to save her life an
attractive option. Fortunately, her legs didn't break, but there was
a real fear they would. I didn't see this rescue myself, but heard
it described by a friend who was at the end of one of the stablization
lines. Perhaps the hero of the version related to me, Chris Hipgrave,
will add to this post from his perspective.
If this post doesn't completely freak you out, keep in mind that paddling
the Upper Gauley and the Russell Fork are not mutually exclusive. The
Gauley runs Friday-Monday, the Russell Fork Saturday-Sunday. Those with
the time (lucky bastards!) can run the Gauley Friday, hustle down to the
Russell Fork Saturday (about 3 hours? I don't know, I'm always coming
from the other direction), run the Russell Fork Saturday and Sunday, and
then head back up to the Gauley Monday. With what energy they have left,
they can drive out to Friendsville and paddle the Upper Yough the rest
of the week. Yee haw! It's almost enough to make you quit your job...
-- Chris
Chris Hipgrave
wrote:
> Perhaps the hero of the version related to me, Chris Hipgrave,
> will add to this post from his perspective.
Our incident at Fist happened like this:
I was leading two good friends of mine down the Gorge. Both women are great
paddlers. One had done the gorge a few years back so wanted a "refresher"
on the lines, and the other had never done it before. We scouted Tower and
they both had good lines. We went on down stream to the staging eddy above
Fist where we saw some open boaters just finishing off a rescue of their
own. The rapid was described to them both, they had no questions so I ran
it as a visual example without problems. Then the Hope came through
following my line without difficulty, followed by Jeannine.
Above the undercut at Fist Jeannine got surfed left until she was facing
the undercut in question. Hitting it nose on, the boat went round and
flipped. Half out of the boat, she and the boat washed into the corner of
the rock above the entrance to the undercut. Jeannine's face was just out
of the water. She described it as like being in the surf; she would get a
breath between waves in the face. Unfortunately she had not managed to get
entirely out of the boat and was now between the rock and kayak. The river
was therefore crushing her between the rock and her kayak. She was clearly
in great pain, judging from the screams.
The open boaters that where packing up from their rescue where the first to
respond. She had hold of the first rope in just seconds. She could not be
pulled free because she was trapped half in here boat and crshed by the
pressure of water. A second line was thrown which she tried to tie to the
grab loop of the boat. Unfortunatley, she was getting tired and cold (the
water temperature was less than 60 d egrees) and the grab loop was
squashed against the rock.
Meanwhile a group of us had got on the rock that forms the undercut and
where able to stand directly above the incident. We quickly assessed the
situation and realized that straight up to us was going to have to be the
way out. We lowered another rope to here which she clipped to her PFD. This
also gave her something to pull up on to help get her face above water. I
then made a sit-harness out of a prussik loop we had (and old climbing
trick) clipped into another rope and climbed/lowered my way to join the
victim with another rope to try and to clip onto the grab loop og the boat.
This didn't work however as by now the grab loop was completely squashed
againist the wall and was vert hard to reach. So I assisted Jeannine in
getting the rope her body. I climbed out and told the six or so people
helping the situation. Basically, there was no way of getting the boat off
Jeannine. We would have to pull her out and run the risk of breaking a limb
or two, rather than leaving her in there. So we pulled her straight up. She
screamed like hell, but she came straight out and onto the top of the rock.
Nothing was broken but there was MASSIVE bruising to one leg and possible
ligament damage to a knee. She had spent a total of about 10-15 minutes in
teh water. We spend about an hour warming Jeannine up and getting her out
of shock. She then walked out with the help of some other kayakers.
The next morning three of us walked into Fist before the water was on to
rescue the boat. It was ok after we repositioned the seat and re-inflated
the air bags, so I paddled it out when the water came on. With the water
off we inspected the undercut in question. It is huge! It actually has an
entrance big enough to crawl through, then opens up into a cave big enough
to put a truck in, them exits out through another crawl space. It was
completely clean of debris.
Chris Hipgrave
BARR DOUG
I am struck by one of the differences between eastern rivers and western
rivers. Western rivers just don't seem to have those type of undercuts.
Most western rivers are lined with glacial gravel (car sized gravel in
some cases, but you get the idea).
Keith Ferguson
Wow! It sounds like the almost all of the hairy situations were at Fist this
weekend. The rescue that I was witnessed in was nowhere near as intense, but it
looked pretty life -n- death at the time.
A raft from a company called Laurel Highlands pinned against the undercut at
Fist causing two of the three guests and the guide to wash around the right
side of the undercut. The last guest was pinned inside the boat between it's
thwarts from the force of the water. He was pinned in so that the he could
breath in between the surges of water. By the time two of the other guides from
the company crawled on top of the rock, he had washed off from a surge. Several
bag attempts from the flat rock beside Fist were not successful. The entire
incident lasted about 30 seconds for the guest. He received no injuries but was
shocky afterwards. The boat extraction took about 10 minutes.
Food for thought:
I was kayaking right behind the raft that pinned at Fist. When I saw the pin,
I immediately grapped the last chance eddie on river right so I wouldn't get
caught up in the raft/people. Right below the eddie, there are a line of
pillows which are to right of the nasty flake in the center. The pillows are
real easy to boof off of and end up in the eddie below. I never really noticed
them in the past cause I'm always concentrating on the river left run in front
of the undercut. If someone was ever to mess up their line leading into Fist,
or want to sneak it, the move to the right might be an option.
Kevin Geraghty
Try boating the Black Canyon of the Gunnison sometimes. It has a
couple of eastern -style waterfall drops, plus a number of river-wide
boulder sieves and a spectacular "floating" house-sized rock which
entirely spans the river. Technically not an "undercut", I suppose,
but the effect is the same if you go under it.
Kevin Geraghty
Peter Sholander
|->
|->
|-> Wow! It sounds like the almost all of the hairy situations were at Fist this
|-> weekend. The rescue that I was witnessed in was nowhere near as intense, but it
|-> looked pretty life -n- death at the time.
|->
|-> A raft from a company called Laurel Highlands pinned against the undercut at
|-> Fist ....
<snip>
|->
|-> Food for thought:
|->
|-> I was kayaking right behind the raft that pinned at Fist. When I saw the pin,
|-> I immediately grapped the last chance eddie on river right so I wouldn't get
|-> caught up in the raft/people. Right below the eddie, there are a line of
|-> pillows which are to right of the nasty flake in the center. The pillows are
|-> real easy to boof off of and end up in the eddie below. I never really noticed
|-> them in the past cause I'm always concentrating on the river left run in front
|-> of the undercut. If someone was ever to mess up their line leading into Fist,
|-> or want to sneak it, the move to the right might be an option.
|->
Just out of curiousity, has anyone scouted the right-side line(s) in Fist at low/no
water ? Are they clean, but "creeky" or are there hidden geomorphic hazards (siphons,...)
over there too ?
Pete
E-MAIL: shol...@eecom.gatech.edu
Chris Hipgrave
(Peter Sholander) wrote:
> Just out of curiousity, has anyone scouted the right-side line(s) in Fist at
> low/no water ? Are they clean, but "creeky" or are there hidden geomorphic
> hazards over there too ?
Actually the right line at Fist is very clean. There is a ledge off-set to
the Fist (that causes the roasters tail) and upstream by about 2ft. You can
boof off the corner of the ledge and drop in the trough between the ledge
and the Fist..
It looks like your going to hit the Fist, but you never do. The reason why
more people don't run this line (I think) is because the water is working
against you and washing you left away from the boof, so you have to be
fairly pro-active about getting the line.
Chris Hipgrave
LarryGross
lower Meadow (once at almost no water in a canoe walking a lot). I have
not paddled the Russel Fork but have walk/scouted it..... I quess that
I do not view these rivers in terms of difficulty as much as I would in
terms of being life-threatening... and my personal observation of the
Lower Meadow along with the various articles which includes descriptions
of fatal incidents leads me to vote for the Meadow. The Russel looks
nasty and I've heard can render some nasty swims but I haven't heard
much about its lethality...
Perhaps the original post was requesting 'difficulty' instead of this
dialogue... but I guess I find the two intertwined sometimes. In terms
of sheer difficulty, I think some others might be candidates. I've heard
of a river called the Rouge up north that sounds impressive and if you
really want to get with it... try the tribs running off the North Shore
of Quebec.. in particular the Petit Mechitina ... or the lower Niagra
Gorge..... Upper Natahala.... hmmmm....
--
Any statement / opinions made here are mine alone, not the Navy's
Keith Ferguson
The Lower is similiar to the Russell Fork in the 'creeky' fashion but the
penalities on the Lower Meadow are much higher. On the Russell Fork, there a
few 'must make' moves such as the undercuts at Fist and Twist -n- Shout. The
Lower Meadow has a great deal of these 'must make' moves. Starting out past the
route 19 bridge, your confronted with two class IV's, the first having an
extremely large undercut on river left that really wants you and the second is
ledgy run down the left with a huge Fist type rooster tail in the center (all
undercut as well). Fairly calm for the next mile till a rapid called Brink of
Diaster. A narrow entrance into a 15 ft. water slide with a stiff hole at the
bottom. This rapid gets it's name for the next rapid 20 yds. downstream called
Coming Home Sweet Jesus (most consider Class VI). This is a series of ledge
drops lined on both sides by undercut walls. There is a large flat rock in the
center that is actually a cave, (I've sat in it while hiking at low water) the
right side of the drop above this cave has a sluice dropping 10 ft. into an
undercut trap (only way out is under). The last time I checked there was still
a large strainer in the sluice as well.
Real continuous after Coming Home for the next three or so miles to a
rapid called Double Undercut (most consider Class VI as well). Without giving a
description of every rapid, the summary for the Lower Meadow is that the entire
river bed is extremely nasty. It's full of undercuts and nasty pin spots. I
don't feel that the moves are any touger than the Russell Fork but the cost for
a bad line or a swim is Much greater. This is definitely not a river to be
taken lightly.
John Yunker
--
******************************************************************************
Christian Cope
Design Engineer
NCR Microelectronics Products
2057 Vermont St.
Ft. Collins, CO 80525 chris...@ftcollinsco.ncr.com
******************************************************************************
Chris Hipgrave
<kei...@equator.meaddata.com> wrote:
--snip--
> Without giving a description of every rapid, the summary for the Lower
> Meadow is that the entire river bed is extremely nasty. It's full of
> undercuts and nasty pin spots. I don't feel that the moves are any tougher
> than the Russell Fork but the cost for a bad line or a swim is Much greater.
> This is definitely not a river to be taken lightly.
I would second Keiths overview of the Lower Meadow. You can literally be
10ft above the river scouting a rapid and see the river beneath you through
the rocks. There are undercuts everywhere. A swim in any rapid on the Lower
Meadow is full of serious consequences.
However for the experienced creek boater, the Lower Meadow is a real joy.
There are some great heart thumping moves to be made, many optional.
You can run the Lower Meadow as low as 400cfs where is becomes
significantly less threatening and very creeky. From 600-850cfs it changes
character to be a little more pushy. 1000-1500cfs its a non stop paddle
from start to finish with major amounts of push. 1500-2000cfs and it like
doing the Gauley (but its MUCH steep and non stop) A swim at this level
would be disasterous. I haven't done it above that.
Chris Hipgrave