You should scroll down and read the post below this first, “A Moment of Clarity…” if you haven’t yet. It’s good times.
Gauley Fest 2008! A CREATURE CRAFT bonanza! Wild, Wet and Wonderful here in the “West By God.” Darren and Aimee drove out from Colorado with 9 more Creature Crafts, and we took over the Gauley River! Well, we were definately a show, next to the Animal Race and the 3rd Annual Flip-Off. (I’ll try to find some photos of that madness for ya’ll!). We boated all 4 days, raising hell all the way down the river. The best thing about the Creature Crafts is that you can take your boat absolutely anywhere you want to go! Forget about the raft lines, nevermind the idea burned into your head: “rocks bad, water good.” And once you realize that the only thing on the water that trumps the Creature Craft is a bigger Creature Craft, well, holy crap! It’s on!!!
Every day was a new path, a new line, a new boof off another rock, another roll and flip through a bigger hole. It took us all four days, but paddling with Darren, we finally nailed Woodstock rock! (Check out this quick video, it will show you these rapids) Coming through Iron Ring rapid, there’s a nice big rock that can explode a boat. It’s actually hard to hit, all the current is pushing you away from it, so it’s miraculous and terrible when rafts manage to hit it. But we slammed the front of the Craft into it, slid the left tube over it, and flipped right off! It was awesome! Darren was stoked. I was glad to be alive. Good times! We also surfed and flipped in 2nd drop (or Hawaii 5-0) in Lost Paddle, surfed the Energizer at the river right side of Sweet’s Falls for over 3 minutes without flipping, and Moose successfully flipped and pinned on the left side of Shipwreck Rock, the biggest, scariest most dangerous undercut rock on the entire river. No issues, came out fine, thanks to the Creature Craft!
On the 3rd day, we had four boats out. We lined up side-by-side above Pillow Rock rapid, then flew in Blue Angle style, simultaneously! We all aimed for the room-of-doom, a boat sized slot between Binladen rock and Pillow rock. Darren and I, in the boat with the light blue front, yellow back, and balls on the roll bar, landed in the room on our side after nailing Binladen and flipping. Then Drew and Sonya, in the boat with the same light blue and yellow, but T-bars on top, black on bottom, flipped into the room right next to us. Shaggy and Jen, in the purple boat, bumped us into the room and cruised on by, then finally Moose and Brian in the dark blue and yellow boat came slamming into both of us, almost causing Darren and I to barrel roll around Pillow into the toilet bowl hole. In the photos, you can see Darren on the top side, but you won’t see me at all, because I’m on the low side, laughing so hard I can barely keep my head out of the water. You could only imagine…
Thanks for sharing the adventure!
Anyone wanna go boating???
more video!