Opening Weekend Wild Ride on the Gauley

Great weekend of Cool Whitewater and Hot Temperatures on the World Class Gauley river in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. Opening weekend saw lots of action – flips, swims, spills, and thrills but no serious injuries. An Adventures Mountain River trainee from Colorado had some excitement through Iron Ring, though. She said “What a Wild ride in Iron Ring, When I yelled 'All forward!' the other trainees strained and we shot forward like shot out of a cannon toward the Big Hole in Iron Ring – determined to hit it straight and go through..... Then, wham! We hit the wall of whitewater and it stopped us like a brick wall. I fell forward into the person's helmet in front of me and next thing I knew we were through the big whitewater hole next to Woodstock Rock and out in the pool below, but my right eye hurt and was starting to swell! What a rush ! I put a band-aid on the cut over my eye and we went back onto the raft – like Ali into the ring – ready to do battle with the next rapid – Sweets Falls. It's a 10 foot drop with only a 10 foot wide shoot – it is like being in a NASCAR restart – Turn up the sound – the white water roar will rattle your soul and catch your spirit!" White water rafting the world class Gauley River in West Virginia!

Opening Weekend of Gauley Season 2007

Welcome to our new blog!! Long before the word blog was invented, I ran the first commercial whitewater rafting trip down the Gauley River in 1971, before Adventures Mountain River (originally Mountain River Tours) was even formed as a company. What a change over 36 years! The only thing the same is the incredible whitewater rafting. Better gear, better skills, better understanding of river-running, and the popularization of rafting make Gauley Fever bigger every year.

The annual pilgrimage to West Virginia's awesome Gauley River kicked off on Friday September 7th. Thousands came to paddle down the Class IV,V rapids of the Upper and Lower Gauley. Check out our video footage of the excitement on the river. We're new at this blogging, but not at river-running. We'll keep you updated on the action with new video of the biggest rapids every weekend for the rest of the season. Have fun! Hope to see you get out there on the mighty river too. Maybe you can get in our videos!

For a good article on opening season in the Charleston WV News, check out Gauley River 'open for business' today