Time to Reflect...

Summer is over, Gauley season is over, 6 months of getting paid to kayak...over. Man what an awesome six months. Looking back, I don't think that I really would have changed anything either. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have landed so flat off the 25-footer on OBJ or had a class V raft wrap on a forked tree in the middle of a class two section of water. But other than that, what a great time.
I got to live in two of the most beautiful areas that I have ever been. My backyard was my playground. It was truly a breath of fresh air, both literally and figuratively, coming out of the concrete jungle of Bethesda, MD. Colorado is an amazing place to be in the summertime. Although Aspen and the surrounding area is well known for its awesome skiing and snowboarding in the winter, all that snow can make for one hell of a summer. When the days get longer and warmer the outdoor activities in the Roaring Fork valley are endless. Mountain biking of all varieties out your front door, tenuous crimpy sandstone face climbing, bomber 3 pitch granite hand-jamming, four species of the largest prettiest trout almost anywhere, lazy river booze cruising, back-to-back 30 foot waterfalls, and everything in-between. At the end of everyday I found myself wishing that there were a few more hours of daylight. I wasn’t done having fun yet.

Working for Aspen Whitewater Rafting proved to be a good summer job once things got going. There were a lot of rookie guides this year, including myself, but a really awesome crew. My favorite job by far was safety kayaking, basically saving the customers that have fallen out of the boat. I also guided some rafts and did some shuttle driving and led some ducky trips (by far the most hilarious part of the job). We all did everything there. AWR is a small outfit of about 20 people so everyone gets to wash booties hang up lifejackets, etc.

I must emphasize how much fun it was paddling the Roaring Fork everyday, either for work or fun or both. There was a tremendous snowpack last winter which translates to an epic summer in Colorado. The Roaring Fork ran for almost 3 months straight peaking out at just under 3,000 cubic feet per second. This run has a little bit of everything. Boofs, bouldergardens, tight lines, big open lines, a small waterfall, playboating, you name it. I would say it is far and away the best class IV run in Colorado, and one of the top in the Country.

In the time I was out there I had many friends come out to visit from back east. It was great showing my friends runs I had done or exploring runs together that none of us had run.

As July was coming to a close as was the inevitable...the rivers were dropping. The once snow covered mountains that enveloped the Roaring Fork valley were now gigantic barren faces of red and grey rock with the occasional gully or drift of dirty snow still clinging to the most shaded ravines.

I definitely fulfilled my goal of paddling as much as possible and the longest I went all summer in Colorado without paddling was the three or four days I went home for a funeral. After paddling what was pretty much the last single day class V whitewater left in Colorado for 5 out of 7 days my body was beatdown and tired. In the days spent wandering around the one horse town of Kremmling, CO the disappointment that marked the of the end of an awesome season and uneasiness of an uncertain future must have been radiating from the dirty clothes and greasy hair of me and my buddy Chris as we sauntered into the local Subway, too tired and out of creative combinations of rice, meat, noodles, and sauce to make our own meal. The nice lady working that evening clearly picked up on it. She offered cheerful conversation and bought our meals for us. Following the Gore Fest and race I headed back to Aspen for another week or two of scrapping rafts down the painfully low river. Before long it was time to start packing the truck and blazing a new trail.

Where would this trail take me?? I decided since I was already heading back east with all of my gear I might as well try to get a job on the river for Gauley season. I was making phone calls the whole time I was driving from Colorado to upstate New York for my college roommate’s wedding trying to see if anyone needed a videoboater a week before the season started. After hearing nothing but my radio I finally got a call back when I was somewhere in Ohio I think. It was the voice of my soon-to-be boss at Class VI Mountain River, the foremost outfitter in West Virginia on the New and Gauley Rivers. She said she could work me a day or two a week as a whitewater videographer, or videoboater, and I said I was in. After the wedding I paddled a few dam release runs on Labor Day on the Eagle and Taylorville section of the Beaver River, then a low water run on the Bottom Moose. That evening I was greeted with the utmost hospitality at my friend John Greer’s Mom’s house. I awoke early the next morning and drove about 10 hours to Fayetteville, WV. I was finally on familiar ground again after 4 months of wandering.

Working on the Gauley was an experience in and of itself. The river draws customers and workers alike from all over North America. It is a gathering of whitewateraholics from Alaska to Georgia and Ottawa to Washington. Working the Gauley for me wasn’t awesome because I am a badass playboater and got to do trickywhus and McPhonicsNastyMonkeyLoops all day. It’s a fun river to paddle no matter your watercraft of choice or the pace you paddle. I felt extremely lucky to get to kayak the Gauley every release and worked all but about three days. You get a lot of time to think to yourself while paddling class V rapids solo 4 days a week. I couldn’t help but think about all the people missing out on this experience. Now I know the river ain’t for everyone, but when I’m out there I just can’t help but feel sorry for the misguided souls sitting on the couch eating Doritos and drinking crappy beer living vicariously through television shows and video games. LIVE IT! I digress.

The Gauley really is just a flat out beautiful area and awesome river. There are no death defying waterfalls or long technical boulder gardens but you can find lots of fun when venturing out of the main current and hitting some really interesting lines. Working the Gauley was awesome not only because of the whitewater, but also because of the culture and history and traditions and the people that make up the whole experience. The owners at Class VI were clearly hooked more than 30 years ago when they were some of the first people running commercial trips on the New and Gauley Rivers. I had a great time getting to live in the woods under two Wal-Mart tarps in the woods of West Virginia. I really felt one with the woods when I would come back home to my tent or step out back to nature’s bathroom and notice the leaves a little more yellow or orange than they were the day before. On my days of I enjoyed many climbing trips any of the surrounding crags or an evening mountain biking through the think deciduous forests of West Virginia. I also had the pleasure of getting to show my girlfriend, Emily, the wonders of West Virginia, virgin territory for her. We had a great time exploring Wolf Creek and wearing out her dog, Stubbs, swimming in the New River. Getting to share such awe-inspiring area with a total newcomer really opened my eyes to the real grandeur before me. It is easy to take the mountains that you see everyday for granted. However, after spending all summer in the Rockies, there was a certain comforting feeling I got coming home to the Blue Ridge.

Now what? What lies in store for this twenty-five year old homeless jobless bum? I have a college degree, an arthritic subtalur joint (heel), a laptop, lots of pictures, and health insurance. The way I see it the options are endless but I must follow the order o operations. First things first, I am getting surgery on my right foot so that 4 months from now I should be taking my first pain-free steps since falling 20 feet on to rock two years ago. In my downtime I also plan on telecommuting and working as much as possible as a consultant for my former employer, MDA Federal. This will allow me to make some money, stay fresh on my GIS skills, and curtail the inevitable boredom that comes with recovering for 3 months from surgery in the dead of a Mid-Atlantic winter. I also plan on working on expanding my photography and revamping my website to really try and get it out there and actually sell some photos under the guise of “artwork.” I may sink, I may swim, but if I don’t jump in I reckon I will never know. So I will be working on my website as well as searching out new avenues for displaying and “advertising” my work as much as I can through small coffee shops and retail stores. You know places where people interested in pictures of autumn leaves swirling in a small eddy on Mill Creek might hang out.

The outlook is good. Life is Good! I cannot wait to be healed up and more physically able than I have been in the last two years. I will try to keep my blog up-to-date with pictures of gnarly incisions and festering foot wounds and casts. So please keep checking my website as well. I just added an all-new category “The Very Best Of…” which can be reached from the links at the top. I really like it because it will be a nice quick and easy way to get to the goods. These are some of my top picks that would serve as good desktop backgrounds or prints. All of these will be protected, but can be downloaded or printed for a small fee.

Photos coming soon...


The Perpetual Flow.com - The Very Best Of...