09.02.08
Posted in Road Trip, kayaking, recreation, travel at 9:51 pm by heidihoho7
So we ended up leaving for the trip on thursday night and made some good time. We were lucky enough to have an offer for an overnight stop in Kentucky so at 2am we rolled into Pat’s in-laws and passed out for 4 hours. After a groggy wake up call, we drove on for a few more hours. We got to North Carolina and the Nantahala river – our destination for the day, only an hour or so after we told our friends we’d be there (sorry Larrys!).
After all that driving we were definitely ready to get moving and get on the river. We were about to be woken up pretty quickly – the Nantahala is dam released and the water comes from the bottom of the dam so its COLD (about 45 degrees). Our group enjoyed a nice easy paddle, enjoying the views and playing wherever possible while rolling as little as possible due to the chilly water. For many of us this was the first real river we’d paddled in long time, and for Bob this was the first non beginner trip besides his visits to East Race, so it was a great warm up for most of the group.
The hardest rapid (Nantahala Falls) was at the very end and it provided some good opportunities to practice our rolls. Some of us (ok me – see picture to see where NOT to go haha) missed the line and I decided this was a great time to practice hitting lines so i ran it 2 more times, I finally hit the line i wanted on the last run. That rapid ended the run so we enjoyed a wonderful meal at the NOC restaurant River’s End (try the sherpa meals they are great!) which has a wonderful view of the river.
We said goodbye to Larry S and headed off to find the cabin we’d be staying in the next 3 nights just outside Sylva, NC. We wind our way up a mountain road following the directions we were given to find our cabin. I was a little worried about the creek crossing, but that ended up being the easy part about getting to the cabin. I was in the lead (aka guinea pig) and it didn’t bode well when my first attempt at getting up the mountain road failed miserably. We reread the instructions and made sure we got a good run at the hill (imagine at least 8% grade with all pea gravel and a drop on one side with a creek just a foot off the road). Once again my trusty prius proved it always thinks it knows best. My problem was that my car could tell i was losing traction and would cut my engine power (to presumably gain traction again) but that meant we lost all momentum and ability to get up the mountain driveway. After many failed attempts (and me completely losing it) we finally decided to let Larry B and Pat attempt to get up the drive. Their vehicles apparently don’t think they know best and allowed them to make it up the hill. We ended up loading up larry’s element to get all of our stuff to the cabin. I admittedly broke down during this whole process and was mad at my car and the stupid driveway so it took me a while to calm down but eventually all was well… we all were so tired that we all went to bed fairly quickly.
The first picture is looking down at my prius from the cabin driveway and the second is of the cabin itself.
it was a great workout walking up and down each day! You can also see the creek we had to drive over in the background.
The rest of the pics are of the wonderful waterfall that was basically in our front yard.
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Posted in Road Trip, kayaking, recreation, travel at 9:41 pm by heidihoho7
As for most people, Labor Day weekend means a long weekend of family and friends. This year for the two of us it also means being 7 states apart. Bela is off to Colorado for Andy’s bachelor Party and I am headed south to go kayaking with my friends (the usual paddle crew from chicago whitewater).
Bela’s group has rented a big cabin up in the rocky mountains – that just so happens to have a hot tub and swimming pool! So the guys are going to live it up by climbing and hiking during the day and then relaxing in leisure in the evenings with Boulder just a few minutes away for entertainment.
Our group which included Diana, Steve, Pat, Bob, Susan and myself all drove down and met up with our old paddle friends Larry B and Larry S that live nearby (TN). We also rentd a mountain cabin (ours in the smoky mountains). Although it does not have the hot tub or swimming pool, we do have a wonderful little waterfall in the front yard. Our plan is to kayak everyday with our old friends and then enjoy big dinners in the area and retire to our cabin for a much needed good nights rest.
I’ll see if i can get Bela to write up about his travels, but these few entries will be from our southern epic adventure!
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05.27.08
Posted in Road Trip, kayaking, recreation at 4:39 pm by heidihoho7
So this is one of the busiest times of year for us. This is the time where I head off to go paddling whenever i can sneak it in, which also happens to coincide when folks start climbing more. This year Bela ended up having to work some shifts at the gym for memorial day weekend as his managers wanted to go climbing. So I decided to head out east with my paddling friends to get on some fun rivers in PA/WV. This has become an annual event, mostly known as the “Yough Trip” and we normally get a lot of folks showing up. this year we had 15 people in a B&B where we rented the whole house and had another 10 or so people from our paddle club in and around the area as well.
A group of 6 of us headed out early Thursday morning. We got to PA in time to sneak in a paddle on the Upper Slippery Rock. The river is just to the east of New Castle and was just beautiful with fun rapids and a few playspots. I hadn’t paddled a lot so this was a nice run for me, and it ended up being one of the hardest runs of the weekend for me as well. I ended up flipping once but my roll actually worked 
!
After our wonderful first run we grabbed a bite to eat and made our way to the B&B. After some confusion with locked doors we got in and got settled. The next morning was a bit crazy as we ended up referring to the B&B as the B*tch & Bed, as we were exposed to the caretaker of the house who must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed- that and she took our breakfast items away…. After a long morning of sour faces, we finally got things rolling and Pat made us some superb cherry and cranberry scones. This breakfast really improved spirits and we decided to get on the river.
Due to all the rain PA had been getting many of the rivers were quite high, which also made some of the easier rivers a bit more fun. We decided to run the Casselman river from a little town- i’m not actually sure which one- possibly Rockwood and took out near Fort Hill. It ended up being a long run about 11 miles. The first half of the run was superb, fast moving water with lots of little playholes. We all surfed as we floated down the river. As the day went on it got colder and started to rain. Many of us got a bit chilly and were looking forward to the takeout. I of course forgot to put people’s change of clothes in the takout car so it made for a wet and cold shuttle – sorry guys! they paid me back by pretending to urinate in our boats- evil guys!
– well its been a year and i never finished this! so i’ll try to remember the full story!
The next day i did my usual run to Seneca to hang out with the old buds- Andy and Neely came in from Texas and even Joe and Annette came from DC. had a fun day of climbing while the rest of the folks went to the Narrows to paddle since the lower was too high.
the next day i did my first margarita float down the Middle Yough with Diana, Steve and Anna. we actually had a great time just cruising – played a little but there really wasn’t much on the river and we never really found flipper. its also not a short run, so it took a bit longer than we expected. one of the more memorable parts of that run was diana trying to fling her strawberry flavored beverage either at me or to me and it sinking- we were very sad and she kept paddling to try to find it- why isn’t it floating!?
I think the rest of the crew did end up doing the lower, even with the high water. We opted not to paddle on monday and started the long drive home. I was pretty tired and somewhere in Ohio or maybe it was Indiana at that point but all of a sudden i hear a beep (now keep in mind i had just gotten my car so i wasn’t that in tune to her messages yet). we didn’t figure out what it meant and just kept going. next thing i know there are red flashing icons and the car is stopping, no electric to glide on, and we’d run out of gas! Luckily we were caravanning so our very good friends pat, humberto and jack went to go get us some gas- which unforunatley took a while since we were on the interstate. we did have fun making fun of diana til they got back and humberto topped it with his arrival in the crazy mexican poncho & leopard print glasses – it was a sight!
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