Laurel Creek (Tygart trib)

Decent little run if you are in the neighborhood. Check out some video of Laurel Creek:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=1006068789298&comments&set=t.1152243703&type=1

this creek is great! this one goes at much lower flows than teeter (IMO).there is a bridge gauge at the takeout but the water gets backed up from the tygart, a visual upstream is much better. i have run this down to -1 on the bridge gauge. some sick boofs and drops that are fairly safe for being that steep. i am not sure about the left to right move at floating boulder(as stated below), no good due to overhanging undercut on right side of floating boulder, more of a right to left move. easy walk from takeout to first bridge! runs a few days after a decent spike on the tygart(arden).

Two green boats in the run-out of Laurel Creek. This photo was take about 400 to 500 yards upstream of the take-out.

We coupled this with Teter's the last two days for a great day. Yesterday the Tygart Arden gauge was 5000 and today it was 7000. We had a bit higher level today, which was just about perfect. 5000 was on the low side of medium. If you're in the area, check out betty's hideaway, which is on the road adjacent to the Tygart and right near Moats. Great dogs and cold beer.

Jason Hilton is running Floating Boulder. The severely undercut Floating Bolder is on the left edge of this photo. Note the pinning potential of the 'tee-pee' rocks just behind Jason's right paddle blade. If you look closely, you can see wood in the 'tee-pee tunnel' ... not a good place!
The Floating Boulder 'sneak route' begins (where the green boat is) and stays on far river right ... scraping over rocks in shallow water.

At the river-wide ledge waterfall, the best line was on the right. The rest of the ledge forms a sticky hydraulic of varying intensity, depending on level. Scout!

The eddy/pool underneath the NFB (Nightmarish Floating Boulder) circulates viciously--probably the worst aspect of this drop is the thought of flipping at this pool and spending a long time in the boiling, chaotic water and washing under the NFB, which is enormous.

Actually, the line at the 'Nightmarish Floating Boulder' goes left-to-right, not right-to-left, or, at least, that's how I ran it.---Robert Farmer

As of 6/7/03, Laurel Creek was clear of wood and was a clean run from put-in to take out. Having only previously run it once, at a much lower level, we made at least a half-dozen bank-scouts at horizon lines and countless last chance, at the lip, one boat eddy scouts. The run took us about 4 hours, but we were in no rush. Good stuff. Lots of fun. IMO, the rock garden rapids were the most difficult (omitting Olympic Slalom of course). The slides are straight forward, assuming you take the time to get out and look at the ones that you cant see from the road on the shuttle drive up. One other note...there are lots of little pin spots on this creek, so dont take any rapid for granted. Sometimes it takes a few seconds of looking at the same place to see the tell-tale indicators.

Have fun out there!

At 10 Foot Falls, you will come screaming down a low angle slide on river right toward the falls. In the center of the main flow under some tree limbs, you'll see the head of a curler that leads into the notch of the falls (in this picture, the curler that I'm referencing is the highest point near the right side of the picture). Hit the head of the curler with 1:00 angle to counter the curler driving straight off the falls for a great boof. If you veer off line left, you'll go deep in the notch...resurface and paddle hard to get away from the curtain. If you veer off line right, head for the sloping rock on the right edge of the falls...boof, bounce/slide left down the rock and paddle away.

Two boaters on Laurel Creek. This is about a half mile above the take-out. The Tygart at Philippi was at 19,000 cfs or a little over 15 feet.

We ran this steep puppy the other day. Didn't have no guidebooks or laptops to get at the AW site, so we drove upstream 'til it started to flatten out. Looks as though putting in at Rte. 38 gives you a ton of flatwater!

Anyhoo, that last mile is a nice steep ball-o-fun, with quite a few undercuts to be concerned about. At low water, we walked about four drops; some of them would open up at higher water.

This is a very pretty run, well worth going out of your way for if it's running. When you're done, you can catch the last three or four rapids on the Arden section. It'll be high water, so them thangs'll be rockin'.

Nice!
Depends on the level.
He's in there somewhere.