That's a paddling...

A few years back, myself and a buddy had organized for a bunch of the lads to come over from Ireland for a drinking paddling trip. The plan was to paddle some stuff in Canada, Upstate New York, Maryland and West Virginia. (A report and very dodgy mustache for that trip here  Unfortunately I bust up my knee a week before everyone arrived, so I got to see all the rivers, but not kayak. Since then I've been trying to put that right and have made down every river we had on that itinerary bar two the Upper Youghiogheny (the Yough for short) in Maryland and the Gauley in West Virginia. With the closest being over a nine hour drive, they weren't the easiest to get to from Boston. So I figured what better thing to do than add them to the road trip. In fact, they were probably half the reason for the trip in the first place - see some places I've wanted to see, and get on some rivers I've wanted to paddle.

And so the first stop of the trip would be Maryland to paddle the Upper Yough. I headed to the river early hoping to find some local boaters to paddle with,  but after waiting around for a few hours I had gave up and figured I'd head mountain biking instead. As I was driving away, a car with two creekboats on the roof came against me. I flagged him down asking him if he was going paddling - I reckon he sensed the desperation in my voice, "please man, I just wanna go boatin'!". He and a buddy were planning on running the Top Yough and then the Upper Yough and told me to come along. Two rivers for the price of one - nice!

We geared up and hit the river. The Top Yough (American Whitewater - Top Yough) is a great run, starting with a cool slide and drop with the rest of the river being continuous boulder garden. Lots of nice boofs and small slots to squeeze through. We didn't scout anything on the Top or Upper Yough and we kept a quick pace so I don't have any shots from the river apart from two shots I snapped with my phone at the start of the Top Yough.

Swallow Falls - first drop on the Top Yough

Second drop on the Top Yough

Once with finished the Top Yough we headed straight for the next section, the Upper Yough (American Whitewater - Upper Yough). This was probably one of my favorite runs. It starts as two miles of flat, two miles two miles of warmup rapids, four miles of continuous grade IV fun finishing with two miles of flat. Paddling with Jesse and Seth was great as they knew the river backwards and I got to run some of the lesser known  local lines.

The next day I got to paddle the Upper Yough again, this time boating with Frank, a guy from Pittsburgh. On the river I discovered that his buddies were down in West Virginia paddling the Gauley (my next destination) and he was heading down to join them that evening. He told me I was welcome to join them so we set of through the mountains for West Virgina.

Driving to the Upper Gauley, WV. Following Frank in his El Camino (classic Chevy - not the typical paddle wagon!) . Taking photos while driving is harder than you think!

More pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105659496923832797916/OnTheRoadBostonToWestVirginia