The New River Expedition: The Final Stand

The ride with Shawn was enjoyable, informative, and scenic. We rode along a ridge looking down at the Greenbriar River, a tributary of the New River, meeting at Bellepoint West Virginia. “To paddle the 162 mile Greenbrier River, uninterrupted by dams is the ultimate experience “Shawn continued, “It starts high in West Virginia and even the tree classes change from high spruce to other deciduous trees as you drop in elevation.”

We reached the New River where Shawn dropped us off at Bellepoint,WV, below the Lake Bluestone Dam, and we camped that night at a public camp ground near Hinton. Being in a public campground with water, people, and even grass to sleep on was a relief after spending our past 4 nights island hopping. We met a kind lady named Paula Blankenship and her fiance James. We camped close together that evening and Paula shared her food and coffee with us. Ryan and I cooked and Elijah scaled a pine tree barefoot to get a fishing rig out of the tree. We were shocked by Elijah’s endless skill set that we kept discovering as the trip went on. We had our famous chicken and broccoli casserole for dinner that night and talked about the map while we ate. Spirits were high and as we looked at the map and were excited to see how attainable our goal was. Were one and a half days from reaching our goal and the mileage was doable. I called home that night and told my dad, Cooper, that we now had the New River by the throat.

Ryan’s left eye became swollen shut and a rash broke out across his face, showing signs of poison ivy. We applied itch cream and hoped that the rash would be gone in the morning. The rain started and continued all night. We woke on Friday morning to see Ryan’s eye looking worse than before. Paula offered to take him to the hospital in the town of Hinton, WV and Duncan accompanied him while Elijah and I packed camp.

Paula took our wounded crewman to the ER but changed plans when they saw the price. A doctors office opened at 8 who gave Ryan the proper treatment. Paula took Ryan and Duncan to fill their prescriptions and back to the river. Camp was packed upon their arrival and Elijah and I were sitting under the tent with Paula’s fiance drinking coffee. Duncan told Paula that she is our “River Angel” and we thanked her for how she so selflessly helped us at a time when we were helpless. Mike and Shawn fit into the same category as our River Angels as they gave us a service that they usually do not offer as well as valuable advice. The friends that we met along the way are a very special memory of the expedition.

We launched the canoes at 11 AM on Friday morning and waved goodbye to Paula as they vanished behind the rain and we continued our northerly course down the New River. At this point, the map no longer lists rapids. We knew that Sandstone Falls was ahead but we were caught by surprise to see a sign warning us to portage for Brooks Falls.

Ryan and I pulled the boat onto a slippery rock and scrambled up the hill to the road, and walked around the rapids. The entrance alone to the falls is about 300 yards long of rapids and it would be dangerous because a boat will already be full of water before reaching the falls. The rock wall on each side was too steep to walk the boats through and the Portage route was too long. Little did I know but while Ryan and I scouted the rapids, Elijah and Duncan narrowly avoided death. In an attempt to pull up to the same rock that my canoe was on, Duncan spun the canoe to the rocks and Elijah lost his grip on the rocks. The canoe was swept into the current backwards and the crew paddled with the fear of death. Ryan and I were too far down the road to hear their struggle but luckily they were able to break through the current on their own. They reached the rocks and Elijah joked about the close call to which Duncan famously replied, “Quit being so #$&÷!%@ lackadaisical!” After surveying the rapids together, we opted that Elijah and I would paddle both canoes through the rapid, one at a time, tying them off at the base of the rapids after each pass rather than carrying them for a long portage. Duncan and Ryan agreed and would bail the boats as each arrived down river. The river was high after all of the rain and the clear water that we enjoyed in the beginning was now muddy. The higher water increases the class of rapids and adds a new and powerful factor to the navigation. I walked past a photographer on my way to the boat and told him that we were about to give him a show.

Elijah and I spoke somberly as we loaded the boat for our first pass. Duncan’s words repeated in my head that I had a good life back home, “This could be it, don’t die.” Elijah and I shoved off from the rock and paddled against the current towards the middle of the river before turning hard to port to begin the descent through Brooks Falls.

I felt the current sweep us to speed as we entered and we paddled quickly to maintain control. Elijah occasionally stood to see the line ahead and verify our course. The roar of the falls ahead pounded our eardrums and the canoe plunged over a series of ledges. Elijah and I celebrated when we made the pass but we had to be careful not to rock the boat since we were full of water. We reached the shore and turned the boat over to Ryan for bailing. I felt like I had won the Super Bowl as I walked up the road past the photographer and back to the second canoe but Elijah and I treated the second pass with the same care and precision as in the first.

The boats were bailed and we continued. Ryan, who was still under the pain of poison ivy began to question our purpose and why we had to continue. I tried to give motivation but did not have the words to outweigh the storm and poison ivy. Tensions were high and communication ceased as we continued to paddle amidst our frustration. A rapid roared ahead and Ryan uttered “right.” I couldn’t see the rapid and didnt turn far enough. The rapid swamped our boat and Ryan, already cold from the rain shouted, “I’m tired of this crap!” Duncan and Elijah took our path and altered course to land before they tipped over. Ryan and I waited in silence and continued to paddle in silence. The river was calm and the rain limited visibility ahead which was nerve wracking as our next obstacle was to be a river-wide waterfall of up to 25 feet called Sandstone Falls. We hugged the shore to make sure that we could pull out in time for the falls. For the sake of caution I pulled over early and Ryan held the boat while I ran to scout the falls. I saw the Sandstone Falls and carefully selected the path to portage the falls. The current leading to the falls did not appear to be intimidating but we had learned to treat all water around rapids with caution. Duncan and Elijah came to see the falls and agreed on the path to portage around the falls but the expedition was deemed to end here after crossing. Ryan’s condition with poison ivy was all consuming and had stopped his will to continue and Duncan explained the uncertainty of the river ahead, the unmarked rapids, and most importantly the high water level which had risen 8 feet above normal in the gorge due to the storm.

With no words left for motivation and lost credibility to downplay the intensity of river ahead, I agreed to stop here. We planned to make our final stand at the base of Sandstone Falls. After bringing the boats and gear around the falls, our next priority was to get dry. Our tents were pitched with the giant tarp tied up for a common area in the middle. The space was full of coolers and chairs and here we were to make our stand to wait for 22.5 hours for Dawson to rescue us.

We had plenty of food and went through the coolers heating any leftovers that we could find on my jet boil propane heater. We passed our pipes and cigars around and reflected on stories from the week to pass time. The view from our shelter was remarkable as we looked on to the Sandstone Falls. These falls in my opinion are the closest relation to Niagra Falls without travelling all of the way to Canada. We took time to look through pictures as well. Few pictures were taken because of the difficulty in reaching them from dry compartments but we had enough pictures to entertain us. In seeing the pictures from our launch in the beginning at North Carolina, Duncan laughed, “Look how fresh we looked!” The guys in the picture had no clue of what they were getting into.

It was now getting dark and Elijah left the shelter and returned with a tarp full of dry wood. He searched the woods, moving the wet brush to find dry firewood beneath it. Now that we had firewood, we prepared all of the leftover meat for hamburger helper and were barely able to maintain enough flame to brown the meat. While Elijah cooked and doctored the flame under the shelter, a West Virginia wildlife officer pulled up to our camp. Our location was visible from the road and he explained that it was not an appropriate camp site. Duncan, Ryan, and I stood in the rain explaining our situation and Elijah offered a bowl of hamburger helper which he refused. Despite his suspicions, the officer kindly allowed us to stay but warned us about the area.

We sat under the shelter by the light of a lantern and Elijah served our hamburger helper dinner. “I dont know how I am going to explain this story and all that happened when I get home.” Duncan said, “It has been such a trying time and there’s no way I can explain the hopelessness and triumphs that we saw.” I said “I don’t know how I am going to put it into an article.” and Duncan replied, “You have to tell what happened here.” Our site was easily accessible by the road and trucks slowed down to look at us as they passed. Being in the back woods of the West Virginia mountain coal mines, we decided to run a guard shift through the night. Ryan was on guard to midnight, I guarded from12 to 2, Elijah guarded 2 to 4, and Duncan from 4 to sunrise.

We finished dinner and the entire crew was full as we had spent the entire day cleaning house on our rations. Ryan and I walked the pot and bowls to the base of the falls to clean dishes. Even now as we waited in the rain, we made sure to appreciate the magnitude of the place where we were and what we had been through to get here. The crew went to sleep full that night and Ryan sat in the lawn chair by the lantern.

I relieved Ryan’s guard shift and sat listening to the pitter patter of the rain and the torrential falls in the background. Elijah relieved my shift and I happily rolled up into my tent. It wasnt long before I felt a tap, and Duncan told me that he and Ryan were both sitting outside and we should all sit together. Today would be the day that Dawson would come for us and we restrained ourselves from calling him until after 4AM. A shape appeared out of the dark and we were startled until we realized that it was Elijah. We sat together under the shelter and waited in the rain until 4AM and I called Dawson. He was awake and was leaving Florence with his wife, Gisella, to come and rescue us. To know that help was officially on the way gave us hope and added excitement while we sat in the dark. We waited and waited quietly and heard a bird chirp at 5AM. “Theres a bird.” Elijah started plainly. It was a welcomed sign of the morning and we were ready to see daybreak. I went back to sleep until the morning coffee was brewed and we sat under the shelter eating grits with coffee. It was relaxing to consider how warm and dry we were in the midst of the rain and the time under the shelter was enjoyable.

Time must have passed quickly because we were surprised to get a text from Dawson reading, “30 minutes.” With these two words the crew sprung to action and by the time Dawson and Gisella arrived, everything was stowed away to the respective bags. We were so happy to see Dawson that he must have felt like he was crowd surfing in a concert. The bags were loaded into the cars, canoes trailered, and we were on our way home to Dillon.

Trading the paddle for the steering wheel, we once again had full control over our destination and as we drove, we passed miles of river and rapids that we paddled through before and even crossed the I-77 bridge that we camped beside 5 days ago. The New River Expedition was over and I deem it a success. We formed a crew, worked together, and exceeded expectations in greater adversary than we were aware of. Our journey led us to Sandstone Falls, the dramatic entrance into the New River Gorge where the river is compressed from being 100 yards wide into a narrow raceway over rapids with a wall on either side. The river could have been fatal being 8 feet above normal levels and to finish on mile marker 210 rather than 240 is enough to claim the river.

We did not paddle because we wanted to spend 8 nights in the tent, nor did we do it for a workout. The New River is unpredictable in nature from the torrential rapids, to calm and placid lakes, with amazing views along the way. The New River was thought in the earliest days as the original gateway to the west because of it’s odd direction, and though it has been fully explored now by hundreds of years, the New River is remote and ancient enough to take you back to experience those times. The New River is a historical river connecting 3 states and countless communities with the unpredictable personalities of rapid and placid waters. By travelling the river we experienced a piece of natural and American history by the nature and people which have all been shaped by the river.

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