Meadow (Gauley River trib.)

it was a fun day!

Carl Schneider, Jason Hilton and John Rudland are checking out the interior of the cave ... its pretty big!

Running the left side was the intended line, however the right side is a good line as well.

Great Line Doc.

What an awesome level!!

Great day, and great level for 1st trip on LM

Just did the lower at around 430 cfs. Great fun! You wouldn't guess it but the river is plenty deep in most places. Hells gates is alittle dry. So is Sieve City. Brink becomes the hardest rapid, At least thats what I felt. Has one must make move then it's cake. Comming Home is a mandatory portage.

My last run was in Sept 2004 @ 1000CFS. I believe the drop is called Landslide, or is just after a landslide on the left. There used to be a rock that made a good boof in the left center at the bottom of the drop. It now seems to have been turned up, making more of a clamshell. All nine of us made it over, with one scary close call. We didn't have the ability to wave off those behind us. I can only imagine this rock would be much more dangerous at lower levels. We chose the right channel on subsequent runs.

I now see why most normal people do not run this rapid!!!!
This is the cave in Comming Home!! 80% of the water in this rapid goes here!!
It is truely a DEATH TRAP!!

The big boulder on the left side of the rapid is way undercut. There are two lines through the rapid. The main line requires boofing over or punching through the hole in the center channel. The hole feeds directly over to and under the big undercut. There is a sneak line down the far right side.
This is a pretty good view of the right side of Hells Gate. You can see that most of the water exits the rapid after smashing into the undercut on the bank. The cleanest exit is to scrape over the rocks to the left of the main flow. This is easier accomplished with more water. There is a very delicate line in this rapid that threads between obsticals with potentially deadly consiquences. Don't take this rapid lightly. Scout from the right preferrably with someone who knows the riverbed.

Big and beefy is the way we like our rapids!
This is at the bottom hole. If there is any good place to swim on the Lower Meadow this is it. You are past the huge undercut (I am standing on it to shoot video) and you have some slack water to round up gear.
This is a close up looking into the cave.
This is the infamous cave in Coming Home. On the right side around 90% of the water is going into the cave. Even at low water you cannot see an exit out of there. SICK!
This slot is the crux move in Coming Home. Mess it up and.....well, refer to the rapids name. Remember, 99% of the people who do this run walk this rapid. This is one rapid I am glad to shoulder my boat.

Most mortals will never paddle this river when the river is this high. This gives you a look at the righthand line. The huge hole is normally the boof. You can run the left side at this level. Most of the sieves are under water.
The boat is underwater here, pinned between the large rock on the right and an sumerged rock.
These two rock almost back up to where the boat is. To hook in the boat you are required to ferry and hold yourself in frount of these rocks, they are extremly undercut.
Justin is removing the rope that was tied to the boat that broke. It is now completely gone and out of the way.

Some More on guage and other changes New

Forum: BoaterTalk

Re: Lower Meadow Warning hydraulic New

Re: Hey Bryan about the gauge ShawnMc New

Date: Dec 14 2003, 4:25 GMT

From: jbseay

Hey Shawn, JB here. I talked to Todd Richendollar some about the gauge, and he said he hadn't been out there and checked it, but we all agreed today that the Guage is reading low.

Bryan and I agreed to post this info once or twice more to get the word out to non fayettevillains

-The bulk of the rearanging seems to be cobble sized stuff, which has deepened up some drops and shallowed others.

Some large rocks have moved though.

-The change in Coming Home is big. the eddy level in there today looked the same as it use to at like 400 cfs. Except we figure it was 1400 or 1500 cfs. we were pretty far into the drop before we saw the log, so I think it is important to let people know about both the log and the new seive in the eddy, so that no-one accidentally commits and get screwed.

-The main entrance to Seive City (drop immediately below coming home) has opened up, plus the boof ledge in the drop below Seive City has gotten significantly taller, and today it had a 3-4' high boil downstream of it. weird looking. felt funny to me. numerous other little things have shifted around in boogie rapids, nothing big, but noticeable.

-Todd suggested that Sliding Board hadn't changed but that it was just high, making the hole grabby. Luke was able to drive hard left and skip over it on a tounge coming down that side. I'll have to see it sometime at lower water to know for sure.

Later,

JB

This is the nastiest rapid on the run!
This is looking up into the rapid from the bottom.
Making the first boof.

Eddy below Sieve City.
This is the first undercut of Double Undercut.

After this one there is a short pool then the lead in for Coming Home starts.

RB's boat disappeared into this rock for 5 minutes before reappearing.
See more pictures of this run, including a larger-sized copy of this picture, at [http://www.alexjharvey.com/West%20Virginia.htm#Lower Meadow]( http://www.alexjharvey.com/West%20Virginia.htm#Lower Meadow ).

See more pictures of this run, including a larger-sized copy of this picture, at [http://www.alexjharvey.com/West%20Virginia.htm#Lower Meadow]( http://www.alexjharvey.com/West%20Virginia.htm#Lower Meadow ).

Brian Kish runs Brink of Disaster

Carl Schneider is in the entrance to the cave at Coming Home. Camera position is looking upstream. Water that flows toward the cave and leaves that area, travels through sieves under the large rocks on the right and bottom right of the photo.