The Russell Fork gorge starts in Virginia and ends in Kentucky. It is the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi. Besides the beauty of the steep canyon walls and trees changing colors, the amount of drops in the gorge make it a boofing (landing flat off a waterfall) paradise. The trip started off with Curtis Elwood, Rebecca, Coby, and I. We rolled in late into the campground and in the morning were greeted by the professor, Freddie, Raymond and the SLU kayak club kids.
After a nice breakfast at the lodge we rolled out to set up shuttle for the upper. Once on the river and through the first rapid, we already had two SLU kids swimming. All I could think was “that did I get myself into!” Overall the upper was ok, but knowing the gorge was below made it seem really boring. Once at the take out, everyone got off the water except for Elwood, Raymond, Professor and I. We headed down and into the gorge.
The Gorge is a Class IV-V run with sieves and undercuts. Overall our group was good; the professor took a severe beating at tower. At one point it looked like things could have been very serious. There were a couple of swims by other people, I didn’t have any. My Saturday run was super clean, I was very happy but once again the box boof got me at the end. Sunday was a different story, being tired; my lines were not the cleanest.
The Russell fork is one heck of a river and I will be returning this coming up weekend for some more action. Here is a little video I made, I tried a new camera angle and it makes everything look flat and small, it’s not. Enjoy til next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment