The Top 10 Places to Eat Before and After Boating in the Mid-Atlantic

I know all of you are super hardcore and fine dining doesn't factor into your decision about where to boat each weekend (yeah right), but once you're there you've got to eat something. Zagat's couldn't be bothered to write reviews of these restaurants—or if they have, I couldn't be bothered to check—so I've written them myself.

I'll be the first to admit that this list is subjective and heavily biased in favor of the places where I boat the most. A more appropriate title for this blog post might be The Top 10 Places to Eat Before and After Boating in Garrett, Tucker, and Fayette Counties, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. For those people who feel slighted by the omission of their favorite restaurants, I'd be glad to hear your suggestions. My goal is simply to provide some helpful recommendations in case you ever find yourselves in the vicinity of these establishments, and to send some business their way in gratitude for feeding me well.

The Top 10

1. In camp with your friends
Anywhere

Not even the best restaurant can beat cooking and eating in camp with your friends. Sure, it can be hit or miss. Some nights you'll have a seven course meal consisting of a cold cheesy weenie and a six-pack of warm Bud Light (true story). But on other nights you'll have grilled chicken and vegetable kabobs with twice baked potatoes and dutch oven pineapple upside down cake. Either way you get to spend time with your friends, which is what it's all about.

2. The Riverside Hotel
Friendsville, MD

This is a vegetarian restaurant and I'm a carnivore. Just think how good it must be for me to rank it above every other restaurant! It's walking distance from the Upper Yough take-out with front porch seating overlooking the river and family style dining. It serves all-you-can-eat meals featuring hearty soups, home baked breads, organic salads, and your choice of fantastic desserts all for $11. Some people treat the Tomato Basil soup like the Second Coming, but all of the soups are delicious. Whichever one they're serving is my favorite until the following weekend. The bread and butter are always soft, and if you're lucky you might even get the blue cornbread with honey. The salad ingredients are picked fresh from the backyard (including edible flowers), and the cayenne brownie is to die for. They don't serve alcohol, but you can bring your own, and the other beverages are refreshing. The only complaint I can think of is that they're not open year-round, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.

3. Hellbender Burritos
Davis, WV

When I first started running the Blackwater, people directed me to Siriani's—and for good reason—but one night the expected wait was over an hour, so I walked across the street to Hellbender's, and now it's almost always my first choice. There's rarely a wait, the service is friendly, the wood-burning stove takes the chill out of your bones, and they have giant inexpensive burritos. “How giant?” you ask. Well, the first time I went there I asked our waitress that very question. She held out her arm and gestured roughly between her elbow and her wrist. Hell yeah! After a long day on the river that's exactly what I wanted to hear, and the burrito didn't disappoint. I'm a creature of habit, so I usually get the Chicken Hellbender, which has a nice kick to it, but there are plenty of other options. If I'm really hungry I'll also get a bowl of green chili, which has an even nicer kick to it. They used to have a delicious brownie for dessert, but the lady who baked them at home couldn't keep up with demand, and if you're still hungry after the burrito I'll be impressed. Did I mention they serve local beer from the Mountain State Brewing Company?

4. Pies and Pints
Fayetteville, WV

Some rivers always keep you coming back for more, like the Gauley; some restaurants always keep you coming back for more, like Pies and Pints; and after drinking yourself under the table with the wide selection of barley pops they have on tap you may start wondering if you've been swept into a friendly version of the Gauley's famous undercuts. The Cuban Pork Pie is my favorite pizza anywhere with its marinated pulled pork, caramelized onions, pineapple slices, jalapeno peppers, fresh cilantro, and crème fraiche. The Black Bean pie is also superb. The only problem with Pies and Pints is that everybody else knows how good it is too, so the wait can be rather long on busy weekends; however, their new location has more seating than the old one and the hostesses/waitresses are good at moving things along without making anyone feel rushed. Pies and Pints is truly a classic and I wouldn't be surprised if other people list it at #1.

5. The Purple Fiddle
Thomas, WV

Full disclosure: I've never eaten at the Purple Fiddle. It embarrasses me to say it, but it's true. I walked in the door one morning for breakfast, and the guy at the counter told me to go down the street to the Flying Pig, but that I should come back in the evening for dinner and a killer bluegrass band. He was right about the Flying Pig, and I appreciated his honesty, but I didn't come back in the evening and strangely I never have. On many occasions I've meant to come back, but I'm an early-to-bed and early-to-rise kind of guy, and Hellbender's pulls me in like a tractor beam, so I usually end up crashing early in the wildlife refuge outside of Davis while my more rambunctious friends have a great time there and speak about it afterward with reverence. The way they tell it, the Purple Fiddle is the best bluegrass venue in all of West Virginia. One of these days I'll find out for myself, but for now it makes the list on word of mouth alone.

6. Cathedral Cafe
Fayetteville, WV

Cathedral Cafe gets my vote for best breakfast in West Virginia, and no trip to the New River would be complete without a stop here. Housed in a converted church with tall ceilings and stained glass windows, the atmosphere is unique. The food is uniformly good and I can never decide whether to order something sweet, something salty, or both. The prices are also very reasonable because they cater to the dirt-bag boater and climber crowd. In fact, people watching is one of the best things about Cathedral. For boaters like myself who don't climb, it's an opportunity to see another culture and eavesdrop on conversations that are remarkably similar to our own. The restaurant fills up quickly, so I recommend going early to make sure you find a table, especially if you have a big group.

(Expert tip: don't give your bride-to-be a taste of the sweet potato pancakes if she has a tree nut allergy, or you might be accused of attempted homicide. “But I didn't notice the pecans!” won't hold up in court.)

7. Canoe on the Run
McHenry, MD

The menu is short, but every item on it is good. I particularly recommend the breakfast combo with the Morning Sandwich, roasted red potatoes, and slice of melon. Your passion for cinnamon rolls will also be richly rewarded. Don't despair if you see none beneath the glass; they usually have more in the back. Sit outside on the deck and enjoy the light breeze while your mouth waters in anticipation... This place gets bonus points for having “canoe” in its name, even though I don't canoe.

8. Siriani's Pizza
Davis, WV

This Canaan Valley favorite is always busy, so you might have to wait to be seated. Service can be slow, but the pizza is excellent, the atmosphere is fantastic, and you won't be in a hurry to leave anyway. Skiing photos, equipment, and memorabilia line the walls. Sitting at one of their tables gives you a warm feeling that erases all thoughts of the harsh winter outside. They are known for their pizza but their pasta is also quite good, and I often order the O Mike Goss. One thing worth mentioning is that Siriani's is CASH ONLY. If you don’t have any cash, they’ll tell you to swing by the bank in town. Don’t even bother because the bank ATM never has money. Go to the bar across the street from the bank instead.

9. The Flying Pig
Thomas, WV

As mentioned previously, the Flying Pig was recommended to me by a guy at the Purple Fiddle. Now it's my go-to place for breakfast whenever I'm at the Blackwater or one of the wilderness creeks nearby. The atmosphere is very laid back—it feels almost like you're sitting in the bay window of your mom's kitchen, and the proprietress isn't afraid to get sassy at your friends if they can't make up their minds about what to order. The menu is no frills, but the food is high quality and there are little flourishes like the dill in the egg scramble that make this place a winner. Plus it's cheap!

10. Dirty Ernie's Rib Pit
Fayetteville, WV

This has to win the Best Name for a Restaurant award. “Dirty Ernie” evokes images of a guy out back with a smoker made from an oil drum. It's not a restaurant either, it's a “rib pit.” Even if the food was terrible I'd still go there. Fortunately it isn't. I may not be a barbecue connoisseur, but the ribs taste great and fall off the bone. This is a great back-up option if Pies and Pints is too crowded, or a great first choice if you're in the mood for some ribs.

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order)

Black Bear Burritos
Morgantown, WV

I've only been here once, and that was years ago, but I understand the burritos are still good and they have live music on Saturday night.

The Crabby Pig
Cumberland, MD

I was introduced to the Crabby Pig only recently, but it's quickly becoming a favorite. I haven't tried the seafood yet, but the barbecue is very tasty and the pulled pork sandwich is awesome. The restaurant also has easy access from I-68, which is a plus.

Fat Eddie's
Mt. Nebo, WV

This is a mandatory pit stop during Gauley Season before heading home. It's located just east of Summersville Dam on Rt. 129 and serves up burgers, hot dogs, fries, and shakes. Try ordering the hot dog with “Full English.”

The Firefly Grill
Ohiopyle, PA

Nice place to grab lunch with outdoor seating in Ohiopyle.

Lucky Dog Cafe
Confluence, PA

If I went to Confluence more often this restaurant might make the top ten, because it meets all the requirements: good food, good atmosphere, and good people. I've only been there once, so I'm not sure what to recommend, but if you're hungry after running Drakes Creek or just took your family/co-workers rafting on the Middle Yough, this is your best bet.

Mountain State Brewing Co.
Thomas, WV and McHenry, MD

The pizzas aren't quite good as the ones at Pies and Pints or Siriani's, but they're no slouches either, and Mountain State brews its own beer, which the other two restaurants can't boast. They frequently have live music as well.

Puccini
Cumberland, MD

Friends tell me it's not the same as Uncle Tucker's, which used to occupy the same building and brewed its own beer, but Puccini's still makes delicious wood-fired pizzas.

Queen City Creamery
Cumberland, MD

This place is known for its custard, but the deli sandwiches are excellent too.

Rusty Fork Cafe
Elkhorn City, KYl

There aren't many dining options near the Russell Fork, but this one seems to be the best. It's a great place to grab breakfast before the release starts. And I love the name!

You know you haven't been paddling enough when...

You find a bird's nest in your kayak... WITH EGGS. I found this in my Green Boat the night before the Great Falls Race on my way to do practice laps. This was actually the second time I've found a bird's nest in my kayak this year. The first time was after returning from a month in the Grand Canyon.

I store my kayak outside, standing up vertically, and birds probably like it because the cockpit is like a tree hole. It's protected from the elements and high enough off the ground that predators can't get to it. We also have a bird feeder out back, so seeds are readily available. What more could a bird want?

Unfortunately, I do want to kayak from time to time, so I had to evict them. The mama bird actually hit me in the chest in her rush to escape (I didn't know the nest was there). I carefully removed the nest and put it somewhere else, but I've heard that birds won't return to a nest after it's been disturbed, so I probably just made some raccoon's day.

The moral of the story is... if you're going to store your kayak outside, either buy a cockpit cover or get used to animals using your kayak as a flophouse.

Gauley Double Marathon

[ Upper Gauley (10 miles) + Middle Gauley (5 miles) + Lower Gauley (11 miles) ] x 2 = Gauley double marathon (52 miles)

THE WHY

I've wanted to do the Gauley double marathon ever since I heard that kids from the World Class Kayak Academy did it during the 2007 Gauley River Festival. When I tell people this, the response I usually get is "Why?" or "You're crazy." For them, a single marathon sounds bad enough, and a double marathon sounds like torture. But that's not the way I see it.

There's something really cool about running the whole river in one day. It gives you a different perspective. As boaters, we sometimes forget that the river sections described in our guide books (e.g. Upper, Middle, Lower) are arbitrary designations, and we talk about them as if they were completely different rivers. But that's not the case at all. The Gauley doesn't hit a dead end at Panther Creek, and it doesn't bubble up from nowhere at Bucklick. Every point on the river is connected. And if you do the Gauley marathon, it gives you a greater understanding (and appreciation) for the river as a whole.

I say the "whole river" with some reservations, because obviously the Gauley doesn't start at Summersville Dam. It starts many miles upstream on Gauley Mountain and picks up several tributaries that are interesting in their own right before reaching the dam. They are unaffected by the fall releases, so they're not included in the Gauley marathon. But if the dam wasn't there, I'd start higher up!

OK, so that explains why I'd want to do a single marathon, but why a double? That question is more difficult to answer, but I'll try.

• For the whitewater. If I'm going to drive 5 hours each way, I want to get my money's worth. I want to run as many rapids as possible. 26 miles of whitewater is great, but 52 miles is even better. I think the Jackson Kayak crew has the same basic idea when they do an "all day play run." It's all about going home tired and happy.
• For the challenge. I'd never paddled 52 miles in a day before, or even close to it. Could I do it? Was it possible?
• For the novelty. When you run the Gauley every weekend in September it gets a little bland, and you start looking for ways to spice it up. I'd never run the Gauley in a long boat before, and I'd certainly never done twice from top to bottom, so the double marathon was a way to make the Gauley feel new again.
• For the solitude. As everyone knows, Gauley Fest weekend is a circus. With the right mindset it can be a fun atmosphere, but boaters who enjoy the wilderness experience usually stay the hell away. However, I discovered that you can still find solitude on Gauley Fest weekend. You just have to work a little harder for it.

THE HOW

If I was serious about completing the double marathon, I had to do some research first. Here are some of the questions that I had:

• When does the release start?
• When does it end?
• How long does it take the water to get from the dam to Bucklick?
• How long does it take for the water to get from the dam to Swiss?
• How long does it take to do a marathon in a long boat?
• How long does it take to drive from Swiss to the dam?

Fortunately there are a lot of resources on the internet that helped me answer those questions. The Army Corps of Engineers posts the whitewater release schedule every year. Saturday releases are normally from 6AM - 2PM, but on Gauley Fest weekend the release ends at 3PM. That extra hour is crucial for the double marathon, as you will see. Chuck Brabec has written an excellent overview of Gauley River hydrology called Gauges 101 - The Gauley River. This is where I learned that it takes 3-4 hours for the water to reach Bucklick and 8 hours to reach Belva (which is about 4 miles downstream of Swiss). It usually takes me 5.5 to 6 hours to do the Gauley marathon in a playboat, but I'd never done it in a long boat before, so I asked some friends. They told me 4.5 hours was a good estimate. Finally, I got directions from Swiss to Summersville Dam on Google Maps, which told me the drive took 33 minutes.

With this information in hand, it was easy to determine that if the release started at 6AM and took 8 hours to reach Belva, it would get there around 2PM. And if it took 4.5 hours to do the marathon in a long boat, I couldn't start before 9 or 9:30 or I would catch the bubble. After finishing the first marathon around 2, I would have to quickly load my boat on the car and hightail it back to the dam before the water shut off at 3. Then I would paddle another 4.5 hours and take out between 7 and 7:30 (just before sunset). Getting the timing right was very tricky business. It was reassuring to know that the water never really turns off completely on Gauley release weekends; the Army Corps of Engineers releases 600-700 cfs overnight to prime the pump for the next day. But a double marathon on 600-700 cfs would go a lot slower than 2800 cfs, so I didn't want to miss the bubble.

As it turns out, the hardest part of the Gauley double marathon is setting the shuttle. Not many people do it (the kids at WCKA are the only ones I've heard of) so you'll probably have a hard time convincing your friends to join you. Nor do you want to impose on anyone by asking them to sacrifice their own festival plans to pick you up. Furthermore, it would be very difficult to hitch the shuttle -- even on a busy weekend like Gauley Fest -- because the first shuttle is so time sensitive and on the second you're trying to retrieve your car from the dam when everyone else is heading straight to the festival.

There are two ideal situations for setting the double marathon shuttle: either have a shuttle bunny, or have two cars and two friends willing to drop them off at Swiss on their way to running the Lower Gauley (that way you don't have to set shuttle at all and they don't have to go out of their way to help you). Billy Armstrong wanted to do the double marathon with me, so we drove down to the Gauley together. Our shuttle situation wasn't ideal, but we made it work. First, Jeff Kahn and Sean Devine gave us a big assist by dropping Billy's car off at Swiss for us. (Thanks guys!) That took care of shuttle #1. But we didn't have a second car, and we didn't have a shuttle bunny. We decided to wing it. If Billy wasn't feeling up to a second marathon, he'd run shuttle for me. And if he was feeling up to it, we'd try to hitch back. We both left changes of dry clothes at the festival in case we couldn't hitch back to the dam, and I brought my cell phone and some money which I could use to entice people to give us a ride.

THE FIRST MARATHON

We got off to a late start because of the delays that always go hand in hand with Gauley Fest. It was nothing major, just a minute here and a minute there. Billy saved us some time by running down the put-in road instead of waiting for the park ranger's shuttle, but we didn't put in until 9:39 AM. Once on the water, we made quick work of the warm-up rapids. A common misconception is that you have to paddle hard the whole way to do a Gauley marathon. That is not the case. All you have to do is stay in the current and pace yourself. It is generally a good idea to paddle the flatwater and rest in the rapids. But you don't have to sprint. In fact, you shouldn't sprint or you'll wear yourself out.

Below Pillow Rock Billy got out of his Dancer to adjust the outfitting because his feet were being rubbed raw by the foot pedals. I was sensitive to the lost time, but I knew that 4.5 hours was a long time to be uncomfortable, so it made sense to take care of it right then and there. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it, and Billy had to adjust the outfitting again below Lost Paddle. In addition to the foot pedal problem, he was sliding around on the seat, which threw him off balance and made him feel out of control in the rapids. It was clear that he was getting frustrated with all the outfitting issues, because he's a great boater and he just wasn't himself in that boat. I was impressed by how he toughed it out and did everything he could to make the double marathon happen.

When we got to Panther Creek, we both knew that we were running behind schedule. In fact, we were so far behind that we were jeopardizing our chance to finish the double marathon. So we started paddling faster to make up for lost time. If we could make it from Panther Creek to Swiss in 2:45, we just might be able to pull it off. Somewhere in the Middle Gauley we crossed paths with Jason "Paris" Hilton and John "The Rudler" Rudland. It was John's bachelor party, and they were doing the marathon too. (Congrats John!) We told them what we were trying to do, and Jason told us, after looking at his watch, that we'd better hurry.

Shortly afterward, we pulled over at a beach to eat a quick snack and stretch our legs. I started peeing next to a rock, and jumped back when I realized that I was peeing on two coiled copperheads! They weren't very pleased with me.

The Lower Gauley went by in a blur. We kept passing people and passing people. We didn't stop anywhere. We saw people that we knew, and we shouted hi, but we didn't stop. After Diagonal Ledges the river was empty. We saw a boat floating upside down below Lower Stairstep with nobody in sight, so we pushed it to shore, drained it, and propped it up on a rock so the owner could find it. We saw two river boarders below Rooster Tail, and they were the last people we saw. We arrived at Swiss around 2:15. I don't know if we were the first people off the Lower Gauley, but it seemed like it.

Billy decided that he'd better not do the second marathon. He was coming off a shoulder injury and didn't want to reaggravate it. But he was happy to run the shuttle for me. As Billy drove me back to the dam, I devoured a banana and three peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Then I drank straight from a gallon water jug to rehydrate. We made it back to the dam by 2:50. I reloaded on granola bars and Gatorade. After agreeing on a rendezvous time, I headed down to the put-in and slid into the water. It was 2:56.

THE SECOND MARATHON

The second marathon was almost eerie. There I was, on Gauley Fest weekend -- the busiest weekend of the year -- and I was all alone. The river felt like a ghost town. Nobody was at the dam. No rafters, no kayakers, no rangers. It was quiet. All I could hear was the rushing of the water. Nobody was fiddling with their spray skirt at the put-in. Nobody was surfing the wave in the first rapid or hanging out in the eddy. Nobody was doing flatwater tricks in the first big pool. Nobody was warning the newbie in their group not to surf the wave at Initiation. Rafts weren't lining up like school buses. It was just me and the river.

With only a 4 minute head start, I knew that I had to keep paddling to stay on the bubble, so I just got into a rhythm and went. Left blade, right blade, left blade, right blade. Splash in the chest. Stay in the current. Left blade, right blade. When I got to Geek Wave, I saw Adam Johnson throwing down like it was nobody's business. He had it all to himself. I don't know who was more surprised to see who. I also don't know if he paddled out after me or just stayed there until the water was gone and hiked back to the put-in. I just nodded my head and kept paddling. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was throwing loop after loop after loop.

I didn't stop paddling or see another person until I reached Pillow. Luke Hopkins was standing on the rock, and there were a few other people as well. I was getting tired and sloppy, so I flipped in Pillow, which was a wake up call that I needed to pay more attention to what I was doing.

Paddling through the pool above Lost Paddle with nobody else around caused some anxiety. I feel very comfortable on all of the Gauley rapids -- including Lost Paddle -- but I was tired, alone, and worried what would happen if I flipped in 2nd drop, hit my head on the rock shelf, and lost consciousness. Talk about a worst case scenario! I eddied out on the right to catch my breath and to make sure I had a good line. It was probably the first eddy I caught on that second marathon. I was able to block out the bad thoughts and everything was fine.

A little later, I saw a guy portaging around Tumblehome. He was paddling a C-1 for the first time ever and had gotten his @$$ handed to many times that day. My hat's off to him, that takes cajones. I asked him if he was OK and he said yeah, his buddies were waiting for him below the rapid.

I passed a group at Iron Ring and another group at Sweet's. From there it was smooth sailing until Backender on the Middle Gauley with not a soul in sight. There I saw Kevin Vesely and crew. It was around 5:15 at this point. They had a car at the dam and a car at Wood's Ferry, but nothing at Swiss. They also had playboats and a guy with them who'd only paddled three times before. It sounded like they'd be getting off the river really late. I told Kevin we could probably take a driver back to the dam if he could make it to Swiss by 8 PM, which is when I was meeting Billy. But that was the last time I saw them. I heard the next day that they'd made it out alright.

From Koontz's Flume to the flatwater above Swiss I saw nobody else. Nobody. I had the whole river to myself. If you go outside of Gauley Season, that's what it's like. But on Gauley Fest weekend? That was amazing. I just kept chugging along, and made it to Swiss at 7:22. I walked over to the Church to see if they had any food left, but they'd been sold out for over an hour. So I stretched and I waited for Billy. Fatigue set in on the way to the festival. When we got there, I ate some more sandwiches, did one circuit around the festival grounds, and then crashed. Despite all the surrounding noise, I slept like a baby.

CONCLUSION

I don't know if the Gauley double marathon will ever catch on, but that's part of the allure. To paddle 52 miles, you have to really want it. That said, it is very doable, and I think it's worth doing -- even if it's just to get the river to yourself on a busy weekend. The only drawback is that you're too tired to really enjoy the festival on Saturday night (I was never much of a partyer anyway). The single marathon is a good way to train for it, and I see more and more people doing that every year.

Thanks to Jeff and Sean for setting our first shuttle, and special thanks to Billy for doing the first marathon with me and setting my shuttle for the second. You guys made it happen!

Labor Day Weekend at the Upper Yough

This past weekend I ran the Upper Yough with Katy, Bion, Ally, Dan, and Jim. The weather was perfect and the river wasn't very crowded because a lot of people went to the Beaver and Raquette releases in New York. Below are some pictures of our run.

Bion boofing Bastard	Katy boofing Bastard
Katy paddling the runout in Bastard	Dan running a narrow slot in Charlie's
Katy lining up for the Mushroom Cloud	Katy running the Mushroom Cloud
Bion running the Crack at Triple Drop	Dan boofing National Falls
Ally running National	Jim running National

There wasn't a release on Sunday, so Katy and I hiked into the Upper Yough to see what it looks like at low water. Needless to say, it looks a lot different! On our way out we removed the log in the river right slot of Triple Drop, which has been the scene of at least two close calls this summer. Now Gauley season is upon us. Be safe out there!

Charlie's Choice from above	Charlie's Choice from below
Mel's Toilet Bowl	The Crack at Triple Drop from below
Triple Drop from above	The log we removed from Triple Drop
National Falls at 57 cfs	A field of sunflowers in McHenry

Red Creek ELF Run - June 6, 2009

Each time I run Red Creek I tell myself that I'll never run it that low again, and each time I run it lower. Last weekend I ran it at the lowest level yet with Sean Devine, Bobby Miller, Seth Chapelle, and Jeff Wolfram. Despite having virtually no water, the creek was still remarkably enjoyable.

Red Creek drains the Dolly Sods Wilderness of West Virginia and is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I still remember hiking into the creek for the first time in October 2006, when the fall colors were at their peak and I felt like I was walking through a gumball machine. Last year I caught it during blueberry season and gorged myself on the way in. Basically whenever you go to Red Creek it's a special occasion. This time we had 75 degree weather and sunny skies, which made the lack of water less bothersome.

Sean Devine on the 2.2 mile hike into Red Creek via the Blackbird Knob trail.

Sean and Seth at the put-in. You can see a rock dam that hikers have built to aid stream crossings.

Seth on the first big rapid, Super Slide.

Bobby running the Clapper, a 15 foot waterfall onto a rock slab. The rest of us walked it to save our boats from unnecessary abuse.

Seth and Sean airing out the boof at Improvement #2. This rapid used to be a mandatory portage until a hurricane rearranged the boulders in 2003. Now it's one of the best boofs in WV!

Bobby running the Devil's Cauldron (aka Mood Ring). He put together a cool video of the creek, which you can watch here.

After grabbing a delicious meal at Hellbender's in Davis, we bumped into Louis Geltman as he was biking the Upper Blackwater shuttle. He and Andrew McEwan had just run it at around 700 cfs. Yikes! We camped at the North Fork and joined them for another lap on the Upper B the next morning before heading back to DC. It was a great weekend in West Virginia (as usual)!

Webster Springs Festival '09

Last weekend I went to the Webster Springs Festival, an annual event that is held in the mountains of West Virginia. It's always lots of fun. The main attractions are the "Fruitbasket" rivers: the Cranberry, the Cherry, and the Williams (nevermind that the Williams isn't a fruit). This year we got some rain and I was able to catch the Back Fork of the Elk for the first time. It starts out on Sugar Creek for a quarter mile, then joins the Back Fork and floats along lazily for a while before getting down to business. The meat of the run is the "Three Falls" section, which consists of six ledges ranging in height from 4-12 feet. I ran each of these three or four times because I didn't know when I'd get another chance!

I'm thankful to have met up with such a great group of people to boat with. I didn't know any of them before the weekend began, but spending a beautiful sunny day on a great river is a sure way to make friends. Below are some photos from the weekend for your viewing pleasure.

Scouting the biggest ledge on the Back Fork of the Elk	Craig running the ledge
John	Katy
Steve	Joel
Jim	Joel bow stalling in the pool below

Group strainer, er, photo. Left to right: Joel, ???, Steve, Katy, Joel, John, Craig, Jim, ???

On the way home we caught Wills Creek outside of Cumberland, which was another first for me. I didn't take any photos because we bombed down it, but the continuous III-IV whitewater had me smiling from ear to ear. All in all it was a great weekend!

Sandy Beach Graffitti Removal

A few months ago I noticed that someone had spray painted a giant pot leaf on the rocks at Sandy Beach. Now, I can appreciate graffiti on a bridge abutment or a highway overpass, but NOT in a national park -- especially when I see it almost every day. Sandy Beach is a river access point for boaters running both Great Falls and Mather Gorge, so we have a particular responsibility to keep it clean. I decided to organize a graffiti removal effort.

I spoke with Dan Filer, the volunteer coordinator for the C&O Canal NHP, and he enthusiastically supported the idea. Because the graffiti was so close to the river, we agreed not to use chemicals. I mean, we're trying to clean up the river, not pollute it some more, right? That meant we had to use wire brushes and elbow grease. Undeterred, twelve brave volunteers showed up on the morning of Saturday, March 21 to do battle with the graffiti.

For four hours we scrubbed, and scraped, and scratched, and shouted obscenities at the graffiti. We poured water and then sand on it, hoping it would act as an abrasive. It was slow going, but we made some progress. And it was actually pretty fun, thanks to the continuous banter of the volunteers! Finally we grew tired, and decided tha we had made as much progress as we were going to that day. It was time to step back and rethink our strategy.

The graffiti is still there. It's significantly duller, and worn away in places, but it's still there. We're looking into other ways to remove the graffiti besides wire brushes. So stay tuned... the graffiti removal effort is only just beginning!

* Thanks to Dan Filer, Dan LaFrance, Kyle Anderson, and everyone at the NPS who helped me organize the clean up and provided us with tools.

* Thanks to Craig Campbell and Maggie Snowel for taking photos.

* Thanks to Grayson Taff and Tom Veratti for providing refreshments.

*And most of all, thanks to all the volunteers who showed up on Saturday morning to help with the clean up: Craig Campbell, Nancy Fechnay, Bion Kim, Dan MacGuire, David Ritchie, Jen Sass, Jerry Stezer, Grayson Taff, Tom Veratti, and Bob (sorry, I didn't catch your last name), as well as Team Potomac Paddlesports members Jason Beakes and Maggie Snowel.

~Scott

There it is	Getting started
Washing off the residue... starting to look better	Showing off how green my brush is getting...clearly progress is being made
	David making great progress

Graffiti Removal Gallery

Graffitti removal at Sandy Beach by Maggie Snowel

Team Potomac Paddlesports and a wonderful group of volunteers help remove graffitti at Sandy Beach