Tygart Valley

Boat (without paddler) pinned below the 'spout.' The boil is sticky and pushes up against the rock. It kept the boat and paddle for about 30 minutes before spitting it out.

I was there playing at low water--running the second drop, river right 'spout' backwards and such. I had no thought of any consequences at such a low level. I was wrong. I went too far left and upside down on dropping the spout on a third run. The boil pushed me and my boat up against the rock, preventing a roll and it wasn't letting go. I swam out no problem. However, the boil/hydraulic kept both my boat and paddle for about 30 minutes against the seemingly partially undercut rock face. (The paddle was not visible and only about 3-4 inches of the boat's edge was visible.) Since the boat seemed stuck for good after 30 minutes, I went to tell the park ranger that there was no body in the boat and no need for any alarm. Well it was at this time that the feature finally decided to spit the boat and paddle out—while I was 100 yards away. I had to retrieve it about 1/4 mile downstream pinned in a slot. And I never found the paddle.

While I still think there isn't any significant danger to your person at the really low levels, these falls aren't 'consequence free' at any level.

The 'Spout' on the second drop.

I don't know why anyone would say that this is a 'safe' place to paddle. The hydraulics, although they can be trivial at low levels, are potentially deadly at higher levels. It all depends on the level, and knowing the differences requires experience. As my biochemistry teacher likes to say, 'The dose makes the poison,' meaning that a little of almost anything, like water, might be safe, but a lot of something, especially water, can still kill you. For example, the Russell Fork is great fun at 150 cfs, but should you be there at 1500+? Safe to say, 'No!'

Just going down the slide on the left of the river, good stuff
Photo by Jesse Wilson

Going down the run on the left, one cool little run for sure... you start with a little boof and then you gotta paddle hard river left to avoid hit the rock... it's pretty rad for how small it is!
Photo by Robert Scott

Just having some fun dropping the falls
Photo by Jesse Wilson

Tried to run Valley Falls yesterday (11/28/09). Gate was closed. Called the ranger who told us park was closed. Park was still open if you want to walk the 1 mile down the road and back up again, but there is no car access to the falls. Probably best to call before heading there to see if the gate is open.

The ranger gave me that line last year about the access road being inaccessible which turned out to be quite false. It was pretty easy to find with a little poking around on the far bank.
I think he is just trying to avoid having any issues there with paddlers getting in trouble.

Ran Valley Falls this afternoon, and had a blast. Good, clean fun.

We spoke to the ranger about running the whole section, but apparently the take out is completely INACCESSIBLE. The road to the take out was washed out and has not been repaired. just fyi.

leave that freewheel hanging

Why isn't Twist & Shout listed on the rapids? Ran it this weekend with Jeff's clinic, it was great. The walk back is a real pain, but well worth it.

Rhett with a nice boof at the second drop of valley falls.

Just river left of this ledge about 3 ft that Brian is
launching off of is a flat rock under water about 6'.
Its not visible scouting, don't hit it!
This is the sneak route on river right of the island.
The other side is very runnable at this level, but
looked a little hairy in playboats for today.

Not sure why people refer to this run as a 'safe' or a 'beginner run'. Ran it at 4.9' this past weekend. Main river left channel of the first falls was easy to boof; but major recirc if you mess up - I give it a III+.

Ran the river right spout on the second drop. Easy and consequence free if you mess up. I give it a III-. Then we ran down another little III- rapid.

Next we came to Hamburger Helper. At that level a solid Class V. This rapid (including the sneak) is probably as tough as anything I have paddled on Upper Gauley or Upper Yough at normal flows. Dangerous recirc and pin potential. Ran it through the sneak and had to roll up (3 times).

Then we came to Twist and Shout. Scouted it for a while and decided not to run it (even though I have ran it seveal times before without problem). There was a big pillow rock near the bottom of the drop that sent about 45% of the river into a bad pinning 'room of doom' situation. It looked really nasty. Have to say Class V at that level.

Overall, I'd say Valley Falls is a III-V run at 4.9'.

Timo is on line running over the left side of the 4 to 5 ft 'mushroom'. Its hard to see from this angle, the RIGHT side of the mushroom looks like a place NOT to be.
Jeff is well away from the river right rock (looks to be undercut) where safety and spectators are standing. The outflow of the undercut looks like it feeds into a bad place (see lower left in image). The approach to this rapid looks like there is a potential for vertical pins, especially in low water. This potential pin area is the 3 to 4 ft pourover on the other side of the spectators at about their knee level.
Jamie is taking the normal line on this one to eddy out on left. There are other lines for variety,, like catching the eddies on the right. If you try the right eddies, safety standing on river right would be advised. Yep, it’s undercut on the right.
This is a fun little slide. Just keep far enough away from the right side so you don't whack an elbow. At higher levels you may need to duck the overhanging rock.
Just for a little more variety, here is an image of Zack running the far left drop of the second drop. On this day with a level of 4.1 ft, we were able to run 3 drops of the top drop and 3 drops of the lower.

This area is a few hundred yards below the 2nd drop. Paddle down river from here to get to Hamburger Helper and Twist and Shout. In the distance (above Deb's head) you can see the river left drop of the second drop.

Ran this for the first time last week at ~4.5 on the gauge and found it very nice... I don't agree with the IV rating on the falls as we found it very straight forward... In fact the only must make move, gravity took care of!! ;-) I also have some questions about the max that is listed on this page as we were running above the MAX and the Ranger (who was VERY nice) said the locals run it considerably higher???? (My guess is that this was copied out of a guide book sometime) It sure looked to me that it could be run with a lot more water in it... HH is definately a IV and dererves the name... UGLY... The Ranger only asks that kayakers sign in before running... 10 miles exactally from the interstate... A great way to kill a couple of hours and test your wings ;-) --russ--

ACCESS ISSUE: On July 2, 2003 an AW member called to alert us that new steel gates have been erected on both sides of the Valley Falls section of the Tygart. Access to the falls in the State Park is still open; however boaters wanting to run the section below now no longer have access to the take out. These gates are allegedly the property of Martina Mine.

kdavis wrote, in Boater Talk (http://boatertalk.com/forum/BoaterTalk/218315):

'thought i was going to drown today. pretty scary.

'second time down through the falls at valley falls. dropped the top falls, and went sideways. side surfed into the curtain. windowshaded, couldn't roll up. punched out, and went deep. i guess i got recirced about 4 times, being held down around 30 seconds or so each time. finally came out far enough past the boil to grab the grab loop on my friends boat. needless to say, this scared the hell out of me. i was completely exhausted after all this. all i know, is i don't wanna go through that again. 'they' say valley falls is as safe as it gets for learning, but it still has quite a bite if you f*up. got back on the pony and dropped the lower falls. clean. but it took a while to stop shaking.'

Whoa.

Even something with a relatively harmless reputation still has a nasty bite, if you screw up. The top left side has a reputation for spanking the errant paddler pretty hard.

Rail-grab at Valley Falls.

Slashin valley, pretty much seconds before I really started contemplating converting to kayaking

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Photo courtesy of the Monocacy Canoe Club.

..oh, yeah, definitely. The surging pillow on the landing looks nice & plush. Piece of cake.....