Mary in the Prairie

The rain rolled into the region on Thursday night and continued into Friday morning. I hoped the creeks in Nelson would run, but the rain never made it. there. West Virginia and western Maryland were pumping. Curt showed up at my doorstep at nine o'clock on Friday night. We threw our gear in the back of the grease car and hit the road.

Sixty miles into our trip west, the filter on the grease car took a turn for the worst. In dramatic fashion the car began to pull, and eventually lost power. I switched back to diesel. I was frustrated. I replaced the filter a mere fifty miles beforehand, and theoretically they should last around one thousand to three thousand miles depending on the quality of grease. There was only one explanation. Bad grease. I poured five gallons of partially hydrogenated peanut oil into the tank sometime last week. It looked a bit suspect, but against my better judgment, poured it into the tank anyway. As we approached Front Royal, I knew I was paying the price for lack of prudence. Alas, our trip to the mountains and creeks of West Virginia would not be free, but come with a price.

We drove through the cold black night frozen to the bone. The heat was dead. The beauty of the grease car was the enticing allure of free fuel, but with the grease system non-functional, the incisive reality of traveling the tempestuous roads of West Virginia in a bone cold car that handled turns like a small ship in a large squall was quickly disheartening.

We rumbled across the bridge into Davis around one thirty in the morning. We took a right and headed into the bog on the edge of town. The road turned to dirt, gravel and mud. Our senses changed as we drifted into mountain time and the world was once again real. We wondered if Billy was doing alright, alone in the sunless, wet expanse of open land.

He smiled as we pulled beside his Toytota Camry station wagon. Immediately we pulled our gear out of the car and pitched the tent. In an ominous moment of unforseen misfortune, I reached for my sleeping bag and it was not present. I pushed some gear around, fumbled through the trunk and came up empty handed. Bummer man. I was in for a long cold night.

So, with a pile of bad gas and a sleepy head, I put on every stitch of clothing, crawled into the back of the Camry with Billy, and began to shake the dark away. I drifted in and out of bad sleep. In the middle of the night, I woke up and could not feel my feet. We left the back of the hatch open, so Billy could stretch out. The tent tarp protecting us from the wind blew away, and we were essentially sleeping outside. I was beyond cold.

Billy pulled out a space blanket. I truly hope I am never in a situation where I need to use a space blanket in the wild, because they are not warm. Two more hours of dozing in and out of conciousness, and the sky turned a bit pink in the western horizon. We got up, took the tent down and headed over to the take out for Red Creek. I savored twenty minutes of warmth in Billy's sleeping bag on the way there.

We met up with Scott, Tyler, and John Greer at the take out, cooked up a bit of breakfast, geared up, and headed up the fire road to the put in. We stared in disbelief as we stood five miles from the put-in hike and the fire road was closed. Not to be denied, we craftily engineered a pile of logs and rocks in a sharp incline up the face of an otherwise impassable boulder neighboring the closed gate. Billy hopped in his Camry and in a valiant effort attempted to ride the lightning up and over the boulder. He stopped before crushing his oil pan. Several more modifications, attempts, and one hour later, we were denied access to the remote wildnerness gem we were after. We were forced to create a new plan.

Three of us decided to hit the North Fork of the Blackwater, and three set out to try and catch the Lower Otter. In depths of the North Fork, the day turned from despondent to magic. The sun burst through the sky and lit up the canyon in charming contrast. We spent five hours on a one mile run, savoring every last drop on the creek. It was our first time down, so we scouted every drop. Unforgetable boof after boof we picked our way down with grins stretched wide. Double Indemnity and Cow Pissing on a Flat Rock were the favorites of the day.

The hike out of the North Fork is steep and when we reached the top we were exhausted. Curt and Tyler walked down the trail to meet us. Their run on the Lower Otter was likely in need of a bit more water, but nonetheless, they enjoyed the remote gorge. We headed off to Davis to eat dinner at Syrianis. I ate an entire pizza.

We ran into Hazmat and talked about our day. Hazmat is a boater from Winchester, who we seem to see just about every time we venture out into WestVirginia. Tyler saw his buddy Cale, who kindly offered to let us sleep in his warm cabin below the Sods. We ventured out to the cabin after dinner, and were more than happy to find a warm fire and a place to take a hot shower. Cale is a truly awesome dude, and is in the business of outfitting old Landcruisers with diesel engines. We talked grease and biodiesel as the night rolled on.

In the morning, Billy headed out to the Lower Blackwater, and I went with Scott and Tyler to meet John Haddock, and Dan on the Top Yough for a high water run. I was rested, but was not too psyched to be cold again after staying in the cabin. The hole at Swallow Falls was a monster. I ran the far left line, a ten foot boof onto a rock shelf into another ten foot boof. I was pumped. A few more miles into the run, and my left arm was really sore. I was starting to lag behind, and a bit tense with the higher flow. John forget his dry top and was paddling in a splash jacket in frigid temps. Needless to say he was cold. We took out after Suck Hole and headed hiked back o the car. On the way back, we ferried across and hiked up Muddy Creek Falls, the tallest waterfall in Maryland.

We all met up back in Friendsville and headed to the Banana Leaf near Cumberland for dinner. A few more hours and we were back in DC. We reluctantly left our home, and began the shift back to the imaginary world of people. It was a truly epic weekend.

... one more thing

I met a girl named Mary

Gonna' take 'er on down to the prairie...

Until next time...

Double Dipping

John and I woke up early on Saturday morning. We decided to meet at Fountainhead Regional Park for a mountain bike ride, and then head to the Potomac to do some afternoon paddling. Ian Curt decided to head to the river early and do some kayaking...

It was quite some time since I was last on my bike. I rode almost every day before moving to the Washington area, but for lack of company, local trail knowledge and the ever alluring lure of the river, have stayed off the bike.

My front fork has a busted seal, and as a result the shocks do will not hold any air. Therefore, I rode rigid the entire morning. Everything was fine for the first four miles or so, but the constant roots, hard braking because of leaf covered trails, and boulder fields began to wear on my wrists and my legs. The trails were great and offered a wide variety of difficulty and challenge. They flowed well, and there was a good mix of cross country terrain.

The fun started when we got to a small section of trials riding, a few teeter totters, and balance logs. I pulled a wheelie off of one of the teeter totters, launched into a back flip, and landed on my head, an elegant and graceful return to mountain biking. A few more near crashes, and four miles later we were finished and exhausted. We headed out to get some food and watch some kayak videos before hitting the river.

We got a bit of a late start on the river, so we decided to set shuttle and paddle the gorge. We were going to attain up and paddle O-deck, but we put in at Sandy Beach and had to break our way through a river of ice two inches thick before hitting the main channel. We were losing light and decided to paddle down. We were cold and tired from the trail, but as always enjoyed the float through the gorge.

Synonomous

10:42 pm, Friday, January 4th...

Phone rings...

Brett... 'What are you doin' man...'
Curt... 'Not a whole lot, just sittin' here watchin' kayakin' videos and drinkin' a Miller High Life... what are you doin?'
Brett... 'Not a whole lot, just sittin' here watchin' kayakin' videos about to open a a Miller High Life... the champagne of beers...'
Curt... 'Sweet..'

In the Deep North Woods...

I left the familiar confines of my red Embudo behind for a road trip deep into the north woods of Maine. Shan and I spent the holidays with her family, and headed to Maine the day after Christmas. We spent a quick night near Portland, and the following morning proceeded to Mooshead Lake, the gateway to the northern frontier.

We arrived in Mooshead with a few feet of snow on the ground, and the onset of a several days of fresh powder. It snowed six inches our first night and we woke up to pristine conditions. On the first day, we snowmobiled over one hundred miles in the backcountry, topping out at speeds in excess of seventy five miles per hour, on the long curvy snow covered trails. Our half way point was Pittston Farms, a family owned farm that served a warm meal on a bitter cold winter day. We sledded into the dark and arrived back at our cabin thoroughly exhausted.

The next morning, we awoke to eight more inches of fresh powder and headed to Big Squaw, a small homegrown ski resort down the road. Arriving at the mountain, we found out the top half was closed because of an accident on one of the two lifts several years back. Apparently, two of the chairs collided in mid air and snapped off of the main cable. No one died, but several people were severly injured and Big Squaw was forced to shut the lift down, or replace all the chairs. The owner simply decided to close the top half of the mountain. I could not help but stare in wonder at the crystal white trails shrouded in clouds of curious mist every time we rode the lift to the mid way point. Somehow, I would snowboard the entire mountain.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, knee deep in powder and a few big hits. A few local kids piled up a mound of snow at the edge of a cliff that dropped into the face of an old green abandoned hotel on the side of the slope. Speed was not a factor, simply dropping off the lip of this drop gave you a good freefall.

The next morning we woke up and grabbed our snowshoes. We headed for the base of the mountain and parked at the abandoned hotel. Shan and I strapped on our shoes, grabbed pack with some gear and our boards and set off into the snow. The trail was steep and we were headed straight up. Each step took a great deal of energy, even with snowshoes we were sinking at least a foot. After a few hundred yards I was sweating profusely. I knew it would be a long haul to the top.

One hour later we made it about half way. We caught up with a a few local kids that set out to reach the top without snowshoes. They decided to call it quits, and headed back down, one with a small blue plastic sled, the other with a snowboard. They crashed through a pile of bushes and sticks poking through the snow...

We continued up the mountain. The footing was better when the mountain was more exposed. An icy crust formed on the surface. We would get a few good steps before crashing through into chest deep powder. We would dig our way out and start the process over. A little over one hour later and we finally reached the summit.

The lift was in visibly deteriorating shape, its peeling green paint coated with a shiny layer of ice. One fallen chair lay beneath the cables. We took off our snowshoes, strapped them to my pack, and snapped the bindings on our snowboards. We began our descent.

The ride down was well worth the effort. Several feet of untouched powder and the feeling of making fresh tracks. We both wiped out several times and had to claw our way back to our feet. When you turn in powder, it is best to rotate the direction of the board instead of carving the edge into the slope... when you carve, you sink.

We made it to the bottom cold, but in good shape. I was sad to leave Big Squaw, knowing it would likely be quite some time before I would return again, but I knew I would never forget my first day on snowshoes.

Difficult Times

...a few weeks ago, most of the Homegrown crew was out of town. We caught a good bit of local rain, and Difficult Run popped up to a nice level. Curt and I decided to head out for a stroll on the swiftly flowing waters of fecal fun.

We paddled Mather Gorge and stopped for a quick surf session at Rocky Island. The water level was a bit too high, and the wave was starting to wash out. We headed down to the confluence with Difficult and began the short hike up to the put-in.

The wind howled as we scrambled up the muddy leaf covered river bank to the trail head. I was excited to get a run on Difficult. I ran it once before at a similar water level, and for a local creek it contains a few decent manky drops, before hitting the crux of the action in the gorge.

The first drop is a right to left move, over a manky boulder and down a center chute. We meandered through a small boulder garden, and the second horizon line appereared in the distance. We lined our boats up with a bit of left angle and took a quick boof stroke off a four foot ledge. Passing through another small boulder garden, we caught a tiny eddy and lined up for the approach into the gorge. We each took a strong stroke through a small hole, and headed river right. I peeled out of the small eddy, hit a nice boof off the center ledge, and turned around to face up stream.

Curt took his stroke, sparks flew, and the nose of his boat dove deep into the muddy mank. He surfaced river left in a tight little pocket hole guarded by an undercut and was repeatedly trashed to crispy perfection. He rolled up, and took some big strong strokes out of the hole, and we commenced our portage of the last drop.

We perched our boats precariously on a tiny ledge. I climbed inside and launched into a short freefall. I turned around to watch Curt. He slid off sideways and was momentarily wedged between a boulder and the river right wall before pulling his way through.

We continued downstream, back to the confluence with the Potomac, eager to get back to the warmth of home, but thankful for another cold day on the river. Leaving the river that afternoon, with the onset of the holiday season, I knew it would be almost two weeks before I was able to return to my boat and my friends. In the meantime, I did have the deep north woods of Maine...