Tygart Valley

6. Valley Falls to Hammond(Valley Falls Section)

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August 29, 2004

Trip Report

ReporterJeff Macklin

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.