A Trip to the Doctor...Seneca Creek

I was not feeling well enough to go to work yesterday, which convieniently happened to be the morning after a HUGE rainfall and snowmelt in West Virginia. I met Scott, Billy and Nathan at the takeout for Seneca Creek around midnight. I have wanted to get on Seneca Creek for quite a while. It is a long, remote, wilderness run deep in a gorge running off the tallest mountain in West Virginia, Spruce Knob. It does not run very often and when it does you have to be right there to catch it when it does...and we were.


I went to bed in the back of my truck Tuesday night to the sound of bowling ball sized boulders crashing into each other and rumbling their way down the raging torrent that was Seneca Creek. We went awoke, we found that the water was still raging at the takeout, a good sign that there is enough water to put on 13 miles and over 1,400 vertical feet upstream.

We hiked about 2 miles in from the parking lot at the top before we decided we would put in. The creek was slowly working its way downstream picking up flow from all the little feeder streams. It wasn't long before the real action started. There were some ledges and fun slides towards the top. Then some boulder gardens and rock dodging. There was also lots of wood dodging. There were some rapids with logs and some logs with rapids.

Billy getting ready

Scott at the put in

Billy getting his boof on

There were great boofs and ledges everywhere.

Nice drop with a big hole

After a few miles of steeper and steeper drops we came around a corner with a big 'ol horizon line. We were pretty sure it was the 30 footer upper Seneca Falls. We got out to scout it and the left side was good to go.

Scott at upper Seneca Falls

We were all pumped to see that Knife's Edge was free of wood and good to go when we got there. What a cool rapid.

Nathan at Knife's Edge

The nature of this creek, unlike most is actually kind of pool-drop in nature, its just that the pools are hundreds of yards of continuous class 3/4 boogie water with some trees thrown in the mix. The steepest 9 miles averaged 224 feet per mile in gradient and the steepest mile was at 350 feet per mile. Not only was it cold and overcast bit it also snowed on us most of the day, which was a very cool (or cold) feeling.

Billy at Knife's Edge Photo: Nathan Sass

There was lots of wildlife: On the drive down i saw 4 opossums, 1 raccoon, and lots of frogs in the road. On the way to the put in we saw a bald eagle with a fish in its mouth. I saw a brook trout in the creek while paddling, and of course lots of deer on the drive home (both dead and alive).


Billy put it very well in a post paddle email:

"Flood conditions for sure!!! By the time I got to Franklin WV there were raging little streams crossing the highway all over the place. By the time I got to Seneca Rocks lower Seneca Creek was THUMPING, once in a while you could see it well and it would be huge. Their was one hole that was under a street lamp so it could be seen, and it was probably ten feet deep on that tiny little stream bed. You could hear boulders rumbling on the creek bed, and hear them colide with each other...it was wild. I was seriously concerned that the whole canyon that we were camped in would flash flood and wash us and our cars down into the creek...We woke up at the crack of dawn today to see tons of water still, but lower. We hit Seneca Creek. The level was perfect as far as I'm concerned, probably about a medium flow. It was a truly epic day, complete with swims, petons, lost paddles, epic 30 footers, too many ten footers to count, some of the best boofs into steep pillowed out floom slides that I have ever seen, an amazingly steep riverbed flowing through a super steep valley that was claustrophobic at times and completely bedrocked in at others...so many great great rapids....more trees down than you could shake a stick at hahaha....more sketchy tree maneuvers than I am comfortable repeating anytime soon. Some effin sweet rapids, yes Seneca Creek has the goods. Hopefully Curt and Nathans pics will show up soon, they both got some amazing shots, Nathans pics from knife edge were killer....OK I just got home and my phone is dead so I just wanted to give a quick report of the day. It was sweet, but it was also really long, about 9 hours, and really cold, and I'm real tired now but really glad I made it out there, I wish you guys could have been there it is an incredible place, defiantly one to get on at some point."

Check out the rest of the pictures here:
http://www.theperpetualflow.com/gallery/4468546_hRWhi/1/262815031_re5up

Rough day for the red Salto

A little this a little that

Scott: "I think we are gonna go hit the upper Youghabezi instead today"

Curt: "That sounds like the upper Yough at high water"

Scott: "It is"

Curt: "Cool"

Unfortunately I forgot my camera for the Top Yough at 850 cfs and the upper Youghabezi at 3ft. But dang it was sweet. We had some good lines and 16 miles of great paddling. The 5 miles of flatish water between the Top and Upper Yough were an almost welcome rest from the raging pushy water in the rapids.

The next weekend, Feb. 15th-18th, I took Friday off of work and met Billy down at Old Rag for some climbing and camping. They were calling for nice weather and the mother nature delivered.

Nightime bouldering session

We packed up all of our gear at the Berry Hollow parking area and headed uphill with some heavy packs full of food, water, camping gear, a trad rack, a rope and other climbing gear. We ate a small snack at the top, Billy's sleeping pad blew off, he retrieved it from a tree in the gully below the summit. We eyed the guidebook for a while and decided on heading to the God's Area, in particular Oh my God Dihedral. What an amazing sight! The name only begins to describe this 50ft of rock. Determined to climb it, but not comfortable enough to lead the 5.10c dihedral, I did some bushwhacking to get a toprope setup on this beautiful piece of granite.



Billy and I did multiple laps on this route and marveled at our tattered forearms and hands from the course stone. By the time I did my third lap and cleaned the toprode it was starting to get late, so we packed up and headed for the hut on the other side of the summit. Making jokes the whole way about how Brett better have a fire waiting for us, it was a nice surprise when we saw his crashpad outside of the hut. Brett was already cold and working on a fire for us, what a guy. We made some dinner, drank some Nighttrain, did some headlamp bouldering, analyzed life and all its intricacies, enjoyed the fire and eventually slept. We were greeted with a beautiful sunny morning and headed for the crag after a few gallons of Mate made from melted ice out of potholes in the rocks.

Oh My God Dihedral

After the dose of morning mate we headed for the southeast facing Whale's Lip area to catch the morning sun. As with most climbs here, we got to the base of the climb only after a good amount of honing in and bushwhacking. I got geared up and led a route called "Crab Crawl." It was eerily similar to the route I injured myself on in NC...a slabby trad route with an unprotectable start and lots of footwork. But I stuck it out and it turned out to be a fun climb with a great view. Brett pointed out a bald eagle soaring below while I was belaying Billy up.

We topped out and headed towards the summit to get in some bouldering. It was nice and sunny at the top. We then headed back for our bags and decided to head down the mountain. We were all tired and wore out, my ankle was hurting especially bad from all the scrambling.


Brett and I headed back to Bethesda and Billy went home to C'ville. On the way home I was making plans for the next two days.

I met Scott, Tyler, and John Greer in Friendsville Sunday morning and we got a run on the Upper Yough in at 2.3ft. This was another first for me on the Upper. 2.3 proved to be a fun level also.

Scott at Swallow Falls, Top Yough

With the rain we were getting that evening we went to bed with hopes of some creeking on Monday. I dont think we got as much rain as we thought/hoped for, but we had a very low, boat abuse level run on Meadow Run into the lower Yough loop. We also found the put-in for Drakes run, which will be good to know for the future.

What a great 4 days of playing in the woods. By the time I got home Monday evening, I had driven 850 miles, my hands were shredded, i had two blisters from paddling and I smelled like I had been in the woods for 4 days.