Gauley River-The Rock & Roll Scene in West Virginia

    Here we are, after paddling in the Ottawa River, the Youghiogheny in Ohiopyle and Valley Falls in Bryn Athyn, we are back at our home base in Fayetteville, West Virginia. It is a beautiful little town where mountains, trees and rivers all integrated into one gorgeous tapestry. For the 2 weeks in Fayetteville, we paddled the Gauley River every weekend. I went to both the Upper Gauley and the lower. Unfortunately, New River Dries was not in or otherwise, there could be another cool experience.


    Despite the beautiful scenery that Gauley River brings us, it is actually a quite dangerous river to paddle because of the many undercut rocks. 2 people died in the Gauley Fest this year and fortunately we had a safe trip and good time paddling the Gauley River. I made a short video about the River and our paddling. hope you'll enjoy it! 

Valley Falls

          Valley Falls is located about 2 hours south west of Ohiopyle. I swear, I have driven pass this place a dozen times and I couldn’t believe it that I had never checked that place out! But here we are, leaving Ohiopyle, heading toward this waterfall wonderland!

            Valley Falls is famous for its clean, consecutive and friendly waterfalls. When we arrived at the place, there were people having wedding and also people who were just chilling. The waterfalls were vague seen through the spaces between among tree branches.


           We quickly geared up, hopped into our boat and paddled to the first waterfall. Tino taught the students how to pick their line and how to perform a boof stroke.

     He had Lorenzo demonstrated it and then a few students also did it. It looked fun and easy. So, of course I wouldn’t wait any longer! I picked my point, paddled toward the fall and with my last stroke landed on the ledge of the fall. “Boom” I landed a perfect boof! That was awesome. That was a very clean 10 footer. I climbed back up and did several more times of practice before I moved on to the next on.

Tino showed us how to "boof"!

The first level of waterfall (the right one was the one we ran.)

            The next two falls are right next to each other, separated by a big rock in the middle. The fall on the right was narrow and not very easy to boof. Well, I guess I haven’t perfected my skill yet, but anyway, it was a harder waterfall to run cleanly.

The river-right waterfall (Lorenzo was trying to jump over Jordan as he ran the waterfall)

Me attempting freewheeling over the waterfall (failed...)

I tried to boof this waterfall (not a good demonstration).

            The one on the left was a lot bgger and wider, the biggest among all three. I saw other kayakers did it first and Lore and other students did it.

The left waterfall

A kayaker ran the left waterfall

They all have very clean and pretty landing. Though it looked intimidating, the actual run might be easy. I observed it a little bit longer and decided on my line. I put in and paddled hard toward it. There was a short slide before I became airborne. I waited the moment to place my boof stroke and when I got it right, my boat flied and landed perfectly with a loud boof sound! It felt good and looked good. It was awesome!

The bottom waterfalls

Valley Falls waterfall total view recorded