Little Kanawha River

Caught it at 6.33, January, 2007. This level seems low. If you find the supercool 200-or-so-foot slide at the top even slightly intimidating, it gets much harder, so be warned. I shore-scouted seven times, sometimes only 100-200 feet apart. The first bad rapid appeared as I approached the bottom end of an island, on the right side. I almost wandered too far, which would have been ugly, you bet. I scouted left. At the bottom of this rapid is a two-log footbridge that someone has installed in a most-inconvenient place for kayaking (with a rotted old rope above--perhaps the 'cable' mentioned in the next posting).
Immediately downstream is the worst rapid. I scouted from midstream, and ended up doing a \'wheelchair\' move through a 20-or-so-inch-wide slot in the center. The right slot has a huge boulder in the middle; the left slots are sieves or blocked by logs. They might be runnable or more runnable with more water, but are certainly potentially fatal at low levels.
Soon is another large horizon line (12 feet high) on the right with the black cliff behind it. Notice how the water disappears underneath the horizon line. Sneak easily to the left of the island.
This creek is one of the rockiest creeks that I can remember! It is non-stop action, with lots of maneuvering for boat-scouting, and is quite difficult to find your way down safely without a guide. Taking out well-upstream of Ingo will eliminate some logs in the \'flat section\' that might need portaging at some levels. Quite a run!! I notice that the difficulty is listed as Class 3-5. There is nothing Class 3 about this run! Do not try it without at least a few Class 5\'s behind you. For comparison, this is probably harder and much tighter than Fikes Creek, certainly much harder than the Upper Yough at low release levels. Note that while I ran this at a low level, the posting after this one was done near the maximum recommended level, so beware of the differences!

The shuttle described above seems unnecessarily convoluted. Here's how I did it: From Buckhannon drive south on 20 to Arlington. Visually check the river level. Leave your boats at the church near the shore. Drive down river right on the road. Take one left turn near the top of the hill (I think), and then take the first left. (Just stay left--it's easy!) This leads to the river. Nothing complicated about it. I drove it in my old sedan without scraping. Halfway down the road, Leonard, who lives in the isolated cabin there, helped me run shuttle.