Cheat, Shavers Fork

Ran it 10/01/2010. Opting to try for a shorter put-in option, we hiked the High Falls trail to the river. We all agreed that, even though it cuts the shuttle to about 10-15mins each way, the 3 mile hike over the ridge is probably not worth it. The altitude gain isn't too bad, but it switchbacks quite a bit and took us over 2 hours of hiking

As for the river, the level was around 500cfs at Cheat Bridge, and 1400ish at Bowden. It had receded from levels of 4000 and 9000 respectively the previous day. High Falls had a few runnable lines, and the rapids between that and Railroad were fairly continuous Class 3+-4. Railroad itself would be best called a Class IV rapid, with a fairly obvious line down the right of center with a decent margin for error. With more water, I could see the hole being an issue

Mule Hole on the other hand looked more like a Class IV-V rapid...the right side ledge halfway down has a very strong backwash and low head dam qualities (and seems to feed an undercut shelf). The left line was shallow and had some decent sized holes as well.

Paddled Shavers Fork 8/5/2010, McGee Run to Bowden. The level was 450cfs at Cheat Bridge and 1300cfs at Bowden. This was a great level, no scraping and not pushy. I think we counted less than 5 (small)pools we had to paddle across. 20+miles of great waves and play with a few challenging rapids to keep your attention. No wood issues currently. Fantastic run.

What a fun drop

I couldn't read through the enormous amount of info above, but it's worth noting that the Bemis gauge is not readable on-site (i.e. telemetric only), so don't look for it. Also, Carlos Kinder, 636-8113, has always done my shuttle for me. He lives in the house next to the railroad tracks.
Also, the drop called Mule Hole has an enormous, ugly, sickle-shaped undercut horizontal shelf on the right, exactly where you need to run. It's terrifying, and may be covered at higher levels. Be aware. I always end up ferrying hard left above it--kind of spooky. Uncertain boaters should portage.

Got another opportunity on 4/17/2004 to run the Shaver's Fork- the level when we put on at 9:00 AM was 3.6 ft Bemis, 6.0 ft Cheat Bridge. We found that this run was much scrapier this time around, despite the fact that the water was only an inch or so lower; keep this in mind when planning trips up here- small changes in water level overnight can be a big difference. Several of the smaller rapids at the top and a few of the larger rapids below High Falls were very tough to negotiate, causing us to run aground or become pinnned a few times. High Falls itself was too low for the Shredders this time, although a kayak could have easily ran it. One thing we have noticed about the drop on both trips is that the river right side of the falls is very dangerous- a massive boil (the boil constantly surges 3-4 feet above the pool level) blocks the outflow of the hole at the base of the falls. Additionally, due to the low water we noticed that there is a recess behind the waterfall curtain on this side of the falls that would not be a good place to end up. After running this section again, I realized that there were a few difficult and possibly dangerous rapids I simply didn't remember from the first trip. Most of these are straightforward but strong class 4 rapids similar to the bigger rapids on the Kitzmiller section of the North Branch Potomac. One rapid, though, deserves a mention, and comes about 2 miles below High Falls. The river bends slightly to the left and several large, rounded boulders split the flow into slots on river right. These slots carry the majority of the river's flow, as opposed to a wide, shallow, rocky sneak on river left. Unfortunately, these slots are completely blind from the top, and all of these boulders are severely undercut. The line starts from river right and forces the paddler to work hard towards river left through a narrow slot, avoiding a center channel which had 3 trees pinned in it today. This drop is pretty sketchy due to the undercuts and trees- if you are unsure about the safety of the passage it is best to try and bang down the sneak on river left. In general, we noticed alot more undercuts this run down; most of the major rapids have at least one undercut boulder or shelf of rock which would be fatal to a swimmer- one guy dropped his paddle on accident only to watch it disappear underneath a rock shelf just downstream (it never came out). As far as water level is concerned, kayakers should be fine down to the minimums in the guidebooks; rafters, however, would be wise to stay off the water unless it is at least 3.7 at Bemis- higher is probably better still though.

An upstream view of the first significant rapid on the Shavers Fork.
This picture shows an upstream view of the bottom of the first class 4 rapid below High Falls. The big ledge in the picture is best run on river right; however, the line is complicated upstream by several ledges and boulder drops which push left.
This is a downstream view into what is probably the hardest rapid that is not regularly portaged. The best route is to work towards river left, cutting in behind the large undercut halfway down the rapid- missing this move pushes the boater into a junky boulder pile or a nasty pinning rock. The strainer that was at the bottom of this rapid was flushed out by the high water last week.
This drop is located a couple bends above the railroad bridges and consists of a steep approach over a 5 foot ledge. Fun drop.
This succession of class 3 ledges (and the beautiful scenery around them) is characteristic of most of this run.