Flipping in Sweets

"I boated the Upper Gauley and all I got was a photo of the underside of my raft."

To be fair, it's a hilarious photo. Every photo of carnage is--especially a flip, where you can see in real-time how things went black-side-up, and especially when it's your own boat. And to be even more fair, that wasn't the only thing I took from my time on the Gauley River, or in West Virginia at large. But it is the funniest part of my trip out east, and as we all know, I'm a sucker for comedy.

But popping out of the Gauley River to see my boat (and my boating partner) on top of me wasn't just a good story to tell. It was the story to tell. This flip was the culmination of my time out east; the good, the bad, and the soggy.

Almost Heaven!

The Gauley River is the stuff of legends. If you've boated for any amount of time, you've heard tales of carnage and hero lines on the Upper Gauley through the decades. Like clockwork, every fall, boaters from around the country flock to West Virginia to park their beat up old vans and hand-me-down Subarus at the Summersville Dam in time to get into the main current before the water shuts off.

Naturally, I'm no exception to the rule.

In mid-September, fresh off a multi-day trip on the Main Salmon, I repacked all my river gear, rolled up my Paco pad, and headed east towards West Virginia.

I should make it clear that I had never been to West Virginia before this trip, and I knew a grand total of one person in the entire state upon my arrival. But nevertheless, I changed my oil before hitting the interstate, dutifully filled up my gas tank every time it dipped below a quarter on the gauge, ate my body weight in Taco Bell, and picked my way to West Virginia.

Maybe I should have taken it as a sign when I rolled in to Summersville, WV at 11:30pm, only to be greeted by a torrential downpour that soaked my sleeping setup and left me soggy and restless all night in my truck. Maybe I should have turned around right then, at the first sight of those dark storm clouds, and hightailed it back to Colorado, to the rivers I know, to my regular R2 partners.

But I'm stubborn. And I had spent a lot of my summer wages on the gas and fast food that had gotten me out there, so I didn't turn around. The next day, I followed my R2 partner's van as he led me down winding roads from the local fair grounds to the takeout for the Upper Gauley. I held tight to my Sheetz breakfast sandwich as I tried to keep balanced in the back of his van on our way back to the dam. I poured sweat in the late-summer heat as I pumped and rigged my boat, my mind racing on what the Upper G would feel like in my tiny boat.

We tossed the boat onto the river and wedged our feet under the thwarts. One paddle stroke to peel out of the eddy, and we were in the main current and on the Upper Gauley.

Insignificant. Pillow Rock. Lost Paddle. Iron Ring. Sweets Falls. The "Big Five" rapids flew by. Each time my R2 partner would eddy out above the rapid to paint a word picture of the line, and each time the words would wash completely over me like a giant wave. I couldn't remember the line on a single major rapid. My R2 partner called commands at me. I swam in Hungry Mother trying to surf. We made it to the takeout, and I never wanted to see the Upper Gauley again.

I was terrified.

I called home that night. I called my old boating partners from Colorado and I cried. I told them I was coming back home. I told them I hated West Virginia, and I hated the Gauley River. I told them I was a bad boater. The Gauley had defeated me.

Tudor's Biscuits and a Copperhead Snake

I'm fortunate to have good friends. I'm even more fortunate to have friends that are honest with me. I'm the most fortunate that West Virginia has Tudor's Biscuits. The day after my first reckoning with the Upper G, between teary-eyed phone calls with friends way out west, I picked up the best chain restaurant breakfast sandwich I've ever had, drove my car to a parking lot that looked like it "probably" had trails branching off of it, and started out on a long run.

In the first mile, I hurdled a snake slung lazily across the path. Friends confirmed later from a photo I had very bravely taken that it was in fact a copperhead, and I probably should have turned around.

I could have sworn West Virginia was trying to kill me.

But the copperhead didn't bite me. West Virginia didn't kill me. The Upper G didn't drown me. And I didn't go home that weekend.

I camped out at the dam. I developed the annoying habit of begging my new found friends to boat with me. I asked questions every lap of ferry angles, sneak lines, and swim directions. I felt my heart beat out of my chest when we took the left line at Pillow Rock, and again when we got parked in Tunnel of Love, right above the sieve. I ate even more Tudor's buscuits. I ran more miles (and never saw another copperhead). I swam out of my boat and watched it get surfed in a keeper hole. I drove back and forth from Summersville, WV to Friendsville, MD, back to Summersville, back to Friendsville, and back to Summersville to complete the "Gauley-Yough Sandwich" (that's Upper Yough on Friday, Upper Gauley on Saturday and Sunday, and Upper Yough again on Monday, totaling 40 river miles and 12 hours of driving).

And finally, on the second to last day of the 2025 Gauley season, I flipped my boat in Sweets Falls.

The flip itself was uneventful. My R2 partner had historically gone too far left at Sweets, and I had just recovered from going too far right in Sweets the past weekend. I figured that we could split the difference of our two over-corrections and end up somewhere on the right line.

I had the brief thought to high-side when I felt the left tube start to kick up towards me, but by the time my body had put into action what my mind was thinking, my partner was on top of me and we were both under the boat in the current.

The boat sat low and fast in the water with both of us holding on to either side of it as we churned in the whitewater. The comedy here was that neither of us knew the other was still attached to the boat on the other side, invisible and heavy, keeping it unrighted despite our individual best efforts.

We shot past Postage Due and into The Box, where the boat ripped free of my grip and floated away into the slack water. I sat on a rock inside The Box and pouted about my unluckiness.

Finally, getting my breath back, I jumped back into the current and swam after the red rubber raft. I swam out to the main flow just in time to see my boating partner swimming the boat into a downstream eddy. Catching up to him, he told me of his harrowing tale of swimming through The Box with the boat. How the boat moved faster than he expected. How it 'got caught on something in The Box' and he had to pull it loose.

I didn't feel it prudent to tell him that the 'something' in The Box was me.

We hopped back into the boat and floated our way down to the takeout, keeping things uneventful and dry for both of our sake.

The flip wasn't supposed happen. My first bad lap on the Upper Gauley wasn't supposed to happen. If it were up to me, that first lap would have been perfect. Our line at Sweets on that mid-October day would have been perfect. But I've learned that the river gives you what you need, not what you want.

Good Gauley

I'm glad I flipped in Sweets. I'm glad my first lap on the Upper G was terrifying. I'm glad I wanted to quit and go home, and I'm glad I didn't.

I'm glad for the friends who told me to stay when I wanted to leave. I'm glad for Tudor's Biscuits and trail runs with (and without) copperheads. I'm glad for the Gauley-Yough Sandwich, for laps on the Lower G and the Upper New, and for every river mile in between.

The Gauley didn't defeat me. It taught me that showing up scared is better than not showing up at all. That sometimes you flip, sometimes you swim, sometimes you get lost on the way to set the shuttle.

Courage isn't the absence of fear - it's putting your boat in the water anyway. It's setting your angle at the top Pillow Rock and charging towards the current even when your hands are shaking. It's staying in West Virginia when everything in you wants to go home.

I flipped in Sweets. And I'd do it all again.