Youghiogheny

A Saturday trip to the Upper Yough in September. With the reservoir right at the rule band and several releases cancelled, the Saturday release on the Upper Yough drew a crowd and it was a festive atmosphere on a beautiful day. With Adam Cramer as our local guide, we had a great time out on the water before heading south to set up for Gauley Fest. We put on around 1:15, stopped for a bit at National Falls (from about 2:30-3:00), and were off the water around 4:15.

Myself and Craig and Catboat Keith rowed this. Keith ran a 60 inch wide frame and styled it with a boat that was pretty wide. I rowed a Sabertooth which is the easiest size cataraft for this river. It can be rowed.

About 2.5 feet, about 1/4 of the right flow goes ever and into this.

Photo of Triple Drop to the pool below National Falls with some of the 'UY regulars'.
If you need full resolution of this image, contact me at jmac221@gmail.com .
For more photos go to: http://jeffmacklin.smugmug.com/

Level was 2' at Sang Run

edit to remove spam links

John has shown over 100 people down this river for their first time.

Tommy exiting 'Tommy's Hole'.
Yes, This is the Tommy the hole was named after.
I asked Tom McEwan how the hole got his name. He said that he leading a group through the unnamed rapid. He became bow to stern pinned in the rocks at the narrow exit of the hole. He was like a rotisserie. His buddies, unable to stop, ran over & under him.
Charlie said, 'Rapids are not usually named after someone for good things happening, unless you are John Sweet'.

Jeff Macklin posted:
There is SERIOUS wood in the Toilet Bowl!
Yep, i know it sounds funny, but this could be very serious. Mel's Toilet Bowl is a sieve/siphon on river right about 80 yards below Charlie's Choice. It is large enough to pass a person or a boat (not sure if it could pass a person IN a boat). A few people have had the scary misfortune of getting sucked in it, through it and spit out of the back side of it ... with no injury.
If someone blunders into the Toilet Bowl in its present condition, there is a good chance that they will not come out! If you know where it is, this feature is very easy to avoid.

Yes, This is the Tommy the hole was named after.
I asked Tom McEwan how the hole got his name. He said that he was leading a group through the unnamed rapid and became bow to stern pinned in the rocks at the narrow exit of the hole. He was like a kayak rotisserie. His buddies, unable to stop, ran over & under him.
Charlie said, 'Rapids are not usually named after someone for good things happening, unless you are John Sweet'.

Yes, This is the Tommy the hole was named after.
I asked Tom McEwan how the hole got his name. He said that he leading a group through the unnamed rapid. He became bow to stern pinned in the rocks at the narrow exit of the hole. He was like a rotisserie. His buddies, unable to stop, ran over & under him.
Charlie said, 'Rapids are not usually named after someone for good things happening, unless you are John Sweet'.

During icy winter paddling, [b]the Gun Barrel can be one of the most dangerous rapids on the Upper Yough.[/b]

This is why.
Note the narrow chute of the Gun Barrel and the ice lip on both river right & river left. After a period of cold weather, an ice bridge can form at those ice lips, completely spanning the bottom of the Gun Barrel. Yep, an ice undercut with 100% of the flow going under the ice bridge. You won't be able to limbo that low!

You CANNOT GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO BOAT SCOUT the area where the bridge forms. YOU MUST GET OUT OF YOUR BOAT to see the area of interest.
Winter scouting from river right is probably best.

ALL: I paddled the Top Yough into the Upper yesteday, June 8th 2008. Many months ago, a tornado ripped many, many trees down the sides of the flatwater stretch above Sang Run Rd. The next big flood/hurricane could turn the Upper into a death trap of big strainers. It was good to go on the 6-8-08, with some new wood but easily avoidable. Just be careful in there after the next really big storm.

Brent Laubaugh is hand paddling and starting the Time Warp line at Heinzerling.

9.58 miles for the upper yough. First three miles are flat, losing a total of 15 feet, 5 fpm.

Gap Falls is about mile 2.6 on the maps.

Mile 3-4 = 33 feet.
4-5 = 126 feet
5-6 = 83
6-7 = 170 (mile 7 ends at Kendall on the maps, Topozone give this mile 130)
7-8 = 40
8-9 = 40
As we all know, that last mile is flat.

Hi, I just want to clarify two things. 1) At Gap Falls, there is an almost-river-wide hole, so virtually everyone rides the tongue down the far left with a left-to-right angle. 2) Above Bastard, the river turns almost 90 degrees left. Then---and this is very important---below the boof move, there are severely nasty midstream pinning rocks, which are potentially fatal if you screw up. Go left or right, but not down the middle. Use caution! Watch for strainers!

Taking advantage of the fantastic Thanksgiving weekend weather, a few of us made some 'low water' runs down the UY. The Friendsville gauge was 2.87' on Friday, and 2.81' (38 cfs less) on Saturday. We managed to stay in our boats Friday but were knuckledragging for a bit, especially on the flatwater between the put-in and Gap Falls. Saturday, we had to walk about 50 yards. I'd recommend 3.0' at Friendsville as the low water cutoff. There was a noticable difference in the flatwater between the two runs, and some minor changes to the rapids. Overall, we had fun, the trips seemed much more relaxed than a usual release, and it was nice to see clear green water with white peaks instead of the usual muddy brown stuff. On a side note, Deep Creek Hydro had Noon and Midnight releases 3 days prior to the holiday weekend. Why couldn't they have waited? :-(

If you have been here, you know the feeling.
Classic run, beautiful day, great friends... what more can I say :-)

This was Nathan's 5th run down the Upper. He was seeking out the difficult lines and making it look easy. Not bad for a 17 year old.
Tim's boof had one of those 'whomp' landings that we all love so much. Nice.
This was Nathan's 5th run down the Upper. He was seeking out the difficult lines and making it look easy. Not bad for a 17 year old.

This rapid always brings a smile to my face. What's not to like, 100 yards of boofs and holes, and the beginning of a great stretch of whitewater.

Standard

What a great DAY!!!

Karl's slight miss and recovery of the boof line at National. I think he was thinking more about the camera being on him than he was the line.

Bobby Miller (Zonedogg) boofing and with a short tumbling & surfing show and exited the National Falls gracefully.

The paddler was too fast for Boris' camera.

Dont know the boater, but just had to post the great pic. Notify me if you know who it is.

Hey matt, you left out little niagra on the description.

Brian trying to chase down Steve Kaufman in the July 2002 head to head upper yock race.
Looking at the top of Triple Drop. National Falls is off in the distance.

Check the gage for the pre-release Friendsville reading. Add 600 cfs, and read across to get the Sang Run release level.

Example: let's say Friendsville is running 3.0 ft (440 cfs, from the blue curve). Add 600, and you get 1040 cfs. From the red curve, that looks like about 2.3 feet-- a healthy, but reasonable level.

Data from A Grefe, et.al., Youghiogheny river Recreational Capacity Study, 12/89; original chart by MCM; thanks to John Kobak for revising the chart.

National falls the day before Cheat fest, 2001. Just out boating with a few hundred of my closest friends.

Nice log to add to the pucker factor! The normal line is far river right, away from Tombstone. You can see it in that sliver of water in the left side of the picture.

Pat jumps in for a mystery move at national
Pat Kneedler and his raft get swallowed at national
falls (look at the next photo to see his exit)
Pat gracefully exits the raft
The two Ben's show some man love in the front of the
raft while Pat does his best to hold on in the back

Lotsa rocks with pinning potential; however, Roger Zbel and others have shown that this line can be run by 14'9' wildwater boats. You can see the pillowed Heinzerling Rock at the top center of the photo (river right).

From above, it sure looks as though you have to boof this suckah, but I know people who run it pretty straight and they don't hit the rock at the bottom. You can boof it to the right, and get shot into the eddy. I consider that the kewler move.

A reminder about jumping into National from the party rock on river left. There is a rock just under the surface which has sprained/broken ankles of private and commercial boaters jumping into the river.

Right behind Scott is the Slot, which some describe as 'Dimple with an attitude.' Looks as though Scott made it through cleanly.
Sue runs to the left of the leftmost of the Cleaver Brothers. Behind her, and slightly to the river left, is a squirrelly eddy. I like to run the slot that's to the river-right of the huge rock that's directly behind her.
Tombstone Rock is that wet rock on the far river left (the extreme right edge of the photo). To avoid the horrendous undercut that is Tombstone, all you need to do is get right of that dry rock that's just to the river-left of Boris.