It’s been a big winter for us here at Adventures On the Gorge. We built a ton of new stuff, but for the average river rat, the really exciting part of it all is that we’re offering 3 new rafting trips this year. They range from mild to wild, tame to insane and lazy to crazy, so no matter where you fall the adventure spectrum, we’ve got a new trip for you.

Family Lower New River

The Lower New River is the trip that built the WV whitewater industry beginning back in 1969. There’s a lot of history down here, and now we can open it up to a whole new range of rafters.

I don’t know precisely how many families we have who raft or ducky the Upper New, but secretly lament the fact that their youngest clan members are too young to raft the classic Lower New. Well, the minimum age just went down from 12 to 8. Bear in mind, this is not our typical Lower New trip—it’s geared more for the little ones to enjoy it. Every boat on these trips—and they will be big boats—will be outfitted with oars, which a very experienced guide will row. That alone makes this trip a bit tamer, but we’ll also only run the Family Lower New River at summer water levels, which means that even though there are still some mighty big waves, everything is a bit slower and milder. Your guide will also only run the more conservative lines through these rapids.

Jump to this trip on Class VI-Mountain River, Rivermen or Songer Whitewater.

Summer Middle Gauley

So, you like the idea of floating solo in a ducky, but the Upper New just seems a little too mild for you, eh? Then the Summer Middle Gauley may be just what the river doctor ordered! On this trip, you get to explore the Gauley immediately below take out for the Upper, where, at typical summer flows, the rapids are steeper and highly channelized. This is a terrific fun trip, and if you’re interested in duckying the Upper Gauley, it’s a great way to get the required experience.

Jump to this trip on Class VI-Mountain River, Rivermen or Songer Whitewater.

Wait, what? Duckying the Upper Gauley!?

Heh. Read on.

Summer Upper Gauley

When the water on the Gauley becomes more suitable for fishing than big water rafting, we’ll just be getting warmed up. That’s because this year, for the first time ever, we’re offering a summertime ducky run down the famed Upper Gauley.

You and your duckie better be on your guard, because this is a serious run. It’s rocky, steep and way more intense than any other ducky trip we do. It’s also long and strenuous and you’ll be in a ducky alone, so you better bring your A game. The Upper Gauley drops 335 vertical feet in 9 miles, and on this trip, you’ll feel every inch of it. As the water level goes down, the rapids get remarkably steep. So, while yes, this is a ducky trip, it’s nothing like any of the other ducky trips we offer—it is anything but tame, mild and lazy. So much so, in fact, that we won’t let you on this trip unless you have at least one prior day in a solo boat of some kind, such as a kayak, canoe or another ducky.

The Summer Upper Gauley is perfect for June thrills. And we have a new put-in for this one—at the confluence of the Meadow and Gauley Rivers, right above Lost Paddle.

Jump to this trip on Class VI-Mountain River, Rivermen and Songer Whitewater.

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Tags: class vi, Gauley River, Gauley River rafting, New River Rafting, rafting, summer Gauley, West Virginia, whitewater, whitewater rafting

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Activities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.