January 7, 2009 - Otter Creek

Since knocking off Seneca Creek last March, Otter Creek has been #1 on my hit list. I thought there was a good chance it would run on Wednesday, so I started calling people. Most of them had to work, of course, but I was able to convince Billy "Strong Arm" Armstrong and Ian "Buck Nasty" Buckley to join me on this adventure. Billy currently resides in the very cool town but whitewater purgatory that is Charlottesville, VA, and Ian hails from the teeming metropolis of Poolesville, MD.

Due to Otter Creek's difficulty, length, and remoteness, it has a reputation for being "epic-friendly." We agreed to sleep in our cars at the take out so we could wake up at dawn and get an early start. This is the approach we took to Seneca, and it worked out well for us on that occasion. But before leaving on Tuesday night, Billy had to replace the bald front tires on his Corolla hatchback so he wouldn't skid off the road while crossing four mountain passes in the middle of a winter storm.

Meanwhile Ian and I met up at the Urbana park and ride to carpool out west. Somewhere outside of Cumberland the gas light came on in Ian's Subaru Outback. Assuming that we still had a couple gallons of gas left in the tank, we kept driving. Shortly thereafter we lost power on the uphills and the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. We pulled onto the shoulder around exit 46 (across from Puccini's) and cursed the river gods for our rotten luck. Was there something wrong with the engine, or were we simply out of gas? Ian broke down near Grantsville last year while driving a van for the New River Academy, so he was having flashbacks. We brooded for a while, then tried the ignition again. We were able to sputter off I-68 and under a carport at the Cumberland Motel where we could get out of the rain, pop the hood, and exercise our comprehensive knowledge of engine mechanics. After checking two dip sticks, we were stumped.

I called and left Billy a message explaining our predicament, but his phone died in Harrisonburg, so he was incommunicado. I had nightmares of spending our "day off" getting car repairs in Cumberland and drinking our sorrows away while Billy waited for us indefinitely at the Otter Creek take out. I called AAA, and the operator told me apologetically that we'd have to wait 90 minutes due to the inclement weather and the number of stranded motorists. Not wanting to wait that long, we tried the ignition again, and miraculously made it to the BP station at exit 45. After filling up the tank with gas and adding a bottle of Fuel Dry, we were on our way again. Thank goodness there was nothing wrong with the engine!

Ian was getting tired, so I took over on Route 93. We had to deal with snow, ice, and impenetrable fog to get onto the plateau. It occurred to me that the only people on the road were salt truck drivers and a couple bozos with kayaks. After what seemed like forever, we passed through Thomas, descended the other side of the plateau, and pulled into the Otter Creek take out at 1:30 AM. We said hi to Billy, tied a rain fly over the Subaru's hatch, and laid out our sleeping bags. Before going to sleep, Ian muttered that we must be crazy to take a day off work to drive six hours through a winter storm and sleep in the back of a car next to another dude. It rained all night.

We woke up at dawn, made some coffee, and walked across the footbridge to get a visual on Otter Creek. According to the guidebook, the last rapid should be "well padded, with no rocks showing. However," it adds, "this is a pushy level for Lower Otter Creek, so watch out!" We didn't see any rocks, and it was still raining. We knew the level would be rising, but we reasoned that it wouldn't be rising too fast because the rain was light and steady, not torrential. Game on! We geared up and packed our drybags to the gills. I carried a throw rope, a breakdown paddle, a first aid kit, a space blanket, hand warmers, winter gloves, extra fleece layers, an all-weather lighter, the Canaan Valley Adventure Map, Snickers bars, and a headlamp with extra batteries. Billy and Ian were similarly equipped. Better to be overprepared, right? Especially with daylight at a premium and a cold front moving in...

A short hour later we found ourselves at the Condon Run trailhead. Condon Run is a tiny tributary of Otter Creek that you're supposed to "scrape down" for a quarter mile until you reach the marsh. We put on around 10:15 AM and didn't scrape anything. It was less than ten feet wide -- of which approximately eight feet were occupied by rhododendron and mountain laurel that we had to duck and weave our way through. We pulled our hands out of our pogies to fend off branches and slow ourselves down. Before very long we emerged from the rhodo and arrived at the five foot dam and limestone drums, which were built to reduce the natural acidity of the water and make the creek more hospitable to brook trout. Here we found the first gage, which read between 1.3 and 1.4. According to the guidebook, the minimum is 0.7. Clearly we had enough water, but did we have too much? The guidebook didn't really specify a maximum level. The general consensus between Billy, Ian, and myself was "We've come all this way to run Otter Creek, so we're not turning back now." After running the dam, we found the second gage, which read 2.2 (minimum 1.5).

The marshy section of Otter Creek is stupefyingly beautiful. The creek meanders lazily back and forth, sometimes turning 180 degrees back on itself. Sometimes it's enclosed in a thick hardwood forest; other times it opens up into bogs. Like many of the creeks in the area, the water has a brownish color due to the tannins leached into the river from decaying plant matter. At one point, another tributary that was even darker brown entered on the left, and the sight of the two creeks mixing looked like a black and tan! We made our way quickly but cautiously through this paradise, keeping our eyes peeled for strainers, but we were able to get around most of them. We only had to portage two or three times.

About four miles into the trip, things started picking up speed. The riverbed turned from marsh to bedrock and started tilting downhill. Each tributary added more volume to the creek. None of the rapids were blind, but each was a little bit steeper than the last, and there was less space between them. We were still able to boat scout everything at this point, but we started feeling apprehensive because we hadn't even gotten to the real gradient yet. After a mile or so of this, steadily ratcheting up the speed, we came upon the first horizon lines. I felt like the proverbial frog in a pot of water that has been steadily brought to a boil. Up until this point, I could see the bottom of every rapid from the top as I drifted toward it. I just had to wait longer and longer each time. Well, finally there came a time when waiting long enough to see the bottom of a rapid meant that I was already committed to running it. Realizing this a little too late, I had to pony up and run down the gut of a juicy slide. I eddied out below the slide and waited for Billy and Ian. After what seemed like a long time, they fired it up too. Before letting it happen again, we discussed what we would do if our group became separated. We agreed that if anyone got separated from the group, they should hike downstream along the trail to the first stream crossing and wait there for the others.

Just below the confluence of Yellow Creek we got out to scout another slide, which we all ran without incident. The eddy below it on the left reminded me of the Kettle below the Spout because of all the foam in it. We continued downstream and stayed on our toes because we knew the waterfall was coming up. Finally we saw it. I had to scramble and surf a wave to catch the last chance eddy on the right. What we saw was pretty impressive. I don't know what the waterfall looks like at "normal" flows, but at this flow the landing zone looked like a maelstrom. It was definitely runnable -- there was just a ton of water. I decided to fire it up and got rocketed straight toward an undercut boulder on the right, which I exchanged pleasantries with before elbowing my way past. After running the slide below the waterfall, I regrouped with Billy and Ian.

Ian's watch said 1:30. We thought we were making good time, but apparently it wasn't good enough. My rule of thumb for unknown class V creeks with a small, strong group is two miles per hour. We'd covered six miles in a little over three hours, so that was ok. However, we'd just gotten to the class V, and the next four miles were the hardest on the creek. With high water, and without a guide, we thought we could run the crux section safely or quickly, but not both. There simply weren't enough eddies to pick our way down. We'd either have to scout a lot of rapids from shore or fire them up blind. With seven miles still to cover, less than four hours of daylight left, and a cold front nipping at our heels, we didn't have the luxury to spend a lot of time scouting. Nor did we savor the idea of boat scouting continous class V boulder drops that may or may not have had wood in them. In the end, we made a difficult group decision to shoulder our boats and hike most of the crux to save time.

We hiked the crux in about two hours. I kept looking over my shoulder at the creek and wanting to put back in. It didn't look that hard... There just weren't many places to stop. I got to thinking: sometimes walking a rapid -- or a section of rapids -- is the wise thing to do. After all, safety comes first, and the river isn't going anywhere. But what if the river only runs a handful of times a year? And what if you can only catch it one or two of those times because of responsibilities like work and family? That's what makes the decision to walk a rapid so hard: you don't know when you'll get another chance to run it. When you're standing above a new rapid, you feel the same sense of urgency that caused you to take the day off from work in the first place.

When the rapids eased up to class IV around Big Springs Gap we put back in. The time was around 3:30, so we still had almost two hours of daylight left. I vaguely remembered Lower Otter because I had done it once the year before, so we were able to blitz it pretty fast. Fun, splashy wave trains and boat scoutable boulder gardens rolled out before us like a red carpet. It felt so good to be back in our boats again! When we finally emerged on the Dry Fork of the Cheat at 4:30, we let out a collective sigh of relief. It had been a long and cold but very rewarding day.

Looking back on the trip, I'm not sure what we could have done better. We slept in our cars at the take out, woke up at dawn, drove straight to the put in, didn't dilly-dally anywhere, had no carnage, hiked the crux, and still didn't get out of there until 4:30! I guess Otter Creek is an all-day affair any way you slice it. A guide would have saved us time, but I really enjoy figuring out new runs for myself, and I'm sure Billy and Ian would agree with me. You just learn so much more that way. There aren't many first descents left to be had in the Mid-Atlantic, but if you treat every river like a first descent, you can get that same sense of adventure. I also think we made the right decision to hike the crux. When we retrieved Billy's car from the put-in, the temperature had dropped ten degrees and there were two inches of snow on the ground. Mother Nature doesn't mess around.