Rafting Down the Lower New River

On the weekend of July 12th, 2008, I went white-water rafting on the Lower New River near Fayetteville, WV. The trip was engineered by MD (initials only on this blog), who convinced 15 of her friends to join the expedition. She also set me up with three people who were leaving from Columbia and had room for an additional person (me) in their van. "Claire", our virtual navigator with the sultry British accent, guided us down I-95, around "Interstate four hundred and ninety five" and toward the far reaches of Va. We had a good time on the long ride, but for some reason the van liked stopping at every Sheetz convenience store along the way.

We used North American River Runners, Inc., for the trip, and everyone camped out at their headquarters in Hico, WV (Marker A on this interactive Google map). This was my kind of camping --perfect weather, drive right up to the camp site, hot water showers, and a restaurant. For only $10, they would even set up a 2-person tent for you. All it lacked was a liquor store. Fortunately others had anticipated this possibility and were quite generous with their provisions. We were entertained at night with shadow shows on the side of a tent featuring someone's toes.

The next morning we packed up, grabbed a helmet, paddle, and life jacket, and rode in a large bus (left photo) across the New River Gorge Bridge (Marker B) and down into the gorge to the river (I believe near Sewell -- Marker C). I believe the altitude is about 550 feet (old topo map). The area is part of the New River Gorge National River (map that identifies Class III (definition) and above rapids). There was a large crowd of rafters where we disembarked (right photo), but at about 10:15 am it was our turn to go. Ominously there were about a dozen buzzards watching us from a large tree on the other side of the river. Our group of 16 was in two large 8-person rafts (plus the guide) like the one in the foreground of the right photo. The raft that I was in also included the three people that I drove down with and MD. I think only MD had ever been rafting before, but fortunately the guide (the tall man with his back to the camera toward the left of the right photo) knew what he was doing and carefully explained what we should be doing. Each rafter sat on the edge of the raft with their feet wedged under one of the inflatable tubes running across the raft. This made it easy to paddle while still being well connected to the raft. The weather was pleasantly warm, and there were enough clouds to keep us from getting baked by the Sun. I took my (very) old digital camera along in a dry bag, but only risked taking pictures a few times on the river (when there were calm stretches). KJ brought a waterproof camera, and it had to be fished out of the river once by our guide.

The first large set of rapids (Upper Railroad?) was real exciting, and at one point most of the people on the right side of the raft were thrown over to the left side. At the time I was thinking that this could be a long trip, but looking back I suspect that we simply were not quite ready. After a while, it became a standard joke as we approached more rapids to tell people to stay on their own side of the raft. Before we entered a rapid the guide would always tell us which direction to swim if we fell off. Fortunately no one in our raft ever did, but we did see two people fall off rafts going through rapids, and one large raft flipped over. A guide also fell off.

The front car is the most exciting position when riding roller coasters, and the same is true for rafting. Instead I sat in the back left of the raft where no one could easily check how hard I was paddling. For some reason, the right side of our raft was by far the wetter -- only one big wave came over the left side of the raft. Surfing was an interesting, unexpected part of rafting. After going through a rapid, we would turn around and paddle back. There is a quasi-stable position just downstream of the rock that obstructed the flow of water.

About noon we stopped for lunch at the side of the river. The guides provided cold cuts for sandwiches, salads, and cookies. Lunch also provided the opportunity to take a few photos. It took two attempts to get the group photo to the right. In the first attempt, the person taking the photo thought that she took 3 pictures, but actually was not pressing the shutter button hard enough. Fortunately someone wanted to look at the pictures and discovered there weren't any. The right photo is actually the 6th pose, and people were beginning to act up.

Although the rapids provided the thrills during the trip, most of the time was spent just floating down the river. We really did not paddle that much. In several of the stretches between the rapids, we were encouraged to jump off and float down the river near the raft. It was great fun, and in a couple of places you could even float through wimpy rapids. The water was surprisingly warm, but still refreshing.


Toward the end of the trip, our guide suggested that someone "bull ride" the final set of rapids, and we volunteered MD. Holding a rope attached to the front of the raft and sitting precariously on the front (like the person in the right photo), she rode into the rapids. Fortunately she had the good sense to fall back into the raft instead of forward into the river.

Near the end of the trip we floated under the New River Gorge Bridge (HDR photo), which we had crossed several hours earlier. It is an amazing structure whether viewed from its deck or from the river 876 feet below (right photo). When finished in 1977, it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world, and it is still the second highest vehicular bridge. It is closed to traffic the third Saturday in October every year for the New River Gorge Bridge Day party. Last year 155,000 people showed up to watch BASE jumping (YouTube video) and rappelling down the bridge. For comparison, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk draws about 50,000 people.

Just downstream from the bridge, a large rock provided an opportunity to jump into the river. It seemed like a good idea in the raft, but not so smart from the top of the rock. Since there is no easy way back down the rock, in you go (right photo).

We left the river a bit downstream of the large rock and piled into another bus at about 2:30 pm. We had traveled about 6 miles on the river and dropped about 300 feet in altitude. With fortunate timing, it started raining very hard just as the bus headed up the side of the gorge and then back to the campground. After a quick change into dry clothes, we started the long trip back to Maryland.