God's Tongue

We woke up around eight o'clock on Saturday morning. We had a great night hanging out in the Purple Fiddle hostel, making new friends, playing the guitar, and listening to the band play below us.

It felt great to sleep in a bed. We usually sleep on the ground or in the back of our trucks when we are out paddling. We were cold and exhausted from 'High Ridge'. Getting a good night's sleep in a warm bed was a great choice.

We checked the gauges. There were plenty of options, but we decided on Pringle Run. Pringle is a short, but incredibly steep section of whitewater that pours into the Cheat River near the Narrows. I was excited to finally have the opportunity to kayak it. It was one of the first steep creeks in West Virginia that caught my eye in my early days of paddling.

It took thirty minutes or so to get there from the Valley. We parked the truck and started walking up the dirt road. The gate was locked. The army owns the land on top of the mountain and conducts a variety of training exercises that involve building and demolishing bridges with explosives. They installed the gate to keep folks out.

We scouted most of the creek. The boulder drops were large and complex. We grabbed our boats and hiked to the top, and bushwhacked our way down to the creek. We put in above what many consider to be the main attraction, the twenty foot waterfall. The middle lands on a large pile of rocks, so it is important to get right. It looked a bit too low to paddle the lead-in slide, so we walked down ten feet slid into the eddy above the right line of the falls. The line was tricky, but I managed to pull off a decent boof. I stared back at the falls and Curt dropped in close behind.

The creek consists of four sections. The waterfall section comes first, followed by three large, complex boulder garden style rapids. Each rapid consisted of five or six moves through tight technical lines. We scouted each section, and talked for a few minutes about how to best approach the series of rapids. Once we felt confident, we threw our helmets on and proceeded down stream. We took footage and photographed much of the run. It is posted prior to this entry.

We finished our run on Pringle. The day approached mid-afternoon. We took a look at the Cheat. It was big. We hiked up to the truck and loosened our gear. Down the hill we spotted two kayakers scoping out Pringle. They walked up the hill to see what we were up to. We gave them the beta on the creek, and they offered us a lift a few miles up the Cheat so we could run some big water. It was a great trade. The Cheat was pumping, and some of the waves were well over head high and breaking hard.

Curt and I took off our wet gear and changed into some dry digs. It always feels incredible to put on some warms clothes after a cold afternoon on the water. I eagerly threw on my brand spanking new six dollar grey hooded sweatshirt from the Shop and Save in Davis. Perfect.

We milled around the hood of the truck and opened a few cans of sardines and threw them on some crackers. I prefer the ones in hot sauce. Curt pulled out a mason jar of clear liquid. 'It's from Kentucky'.

We decided to hobble up stream to take a look at the guys who gave us a lift upriver an hour ago. We were hoping to catch them in the middle of the action on Pringle, but could not find them. Finally, we noticed them below the waterfall. We walked back downstream to watch them paddle the most technical section. We stood on the banks and waited. The sun shone through the canopy illuminating a cadence of white swirls dancing over the face of bronzed rocks. The rocks were likely bronzed from old mine drainage upstream. The roots of large river birch engulfed car sized boulders like human hands holding baseballs. Prehistoric ferns six feet tall grew on mere inches of soil smeared on vertical surfaces of rock. Tree branches reached from bank to bank holding up the sky arched over the creek. My nasal passages cleared as the mason jar hit my lips. It was like standing on God's tongue.

I was so enraptured I forget about what we were doing. The two kayaks barreled their way downstream in a hurry. Their lines were evidence of a long day on the water. We walked out of the small canyon and back to the car. Curt turned the key and we headed to Jim's house.

Jim Snyder invented the cartwheel. The cartwheel was my first introduction to kayaking. I first witnessed the spectacle sitting like a log on a large raft lumping its way down the New River Gorge. I was twenty years old. It was my first foray into the world of whitewater. I was a surfer, mountain biker and skier when I was not playing soccer in the those days. I knew little of kayaking. There were no big rivers where I grew up. I was having a blast on the river that day with a few close friends. I did not even understand what a kayak was. I watched this guy floating down the river as if he were some sort of wild animal, when suddenly the tail of his boat popped skyward, and then as if by some sort of river magic, he flipped his tail underwater and his nose was pointing skyward. I had no earthly idea how this happened. I was mesmerized.

In any case, Jim Snyder invented this move, and we were on the way to his house to pay him a visit. Curt is the proud owner of a wooden Backlund paddle, Jim's mentor. Curt intended to ask Jim to make a few changes and clean up some damage he'd done over the years. We hopped out of the truck and shook Jim's hand. He brought us into his shop.

Walking into Jim's shop is like walking into the inside of a tree. It primarily consists of sawdust, wood, and sawdust. The walls are covered in sawdust. The ceiling is covered in sawdust. The floor is covered in sawdust. Throw in a whole lot of glue, and it makes you feel like your inside the wood of a tree with sap coursing all around you.

Jim is no stranger to strangers. Most river people are this way. If you speak boat and paddle and your soul is made of rocks and water, you are welcomed into the company of others who appreciate the simple truths of whitewater. Jim poured tales of big water runs on the Grand Canyon, and thrill seeking descents on Roaring Run all over the shop floor. Our mouths stood agape as he displayed the artistic ingenuity of his various paddle and boat designs. He stood before us a simple man who understood the absolute importance of a life lived with aesthetic brilliance and creative grace.

Well over an hour passed and we finally bid Jim farewell. Curt left his paddle behind and was happy with the proposed modifications. Putting a scratch in such a beautiful piece of work is hard to stomach, but the paddle does not truly become art until its blades dip beneath the surface of cold mountain creek, and clamor against boulders in an attempt to seek the grain of time.

Back to the Fiddle. We drove. The weather cleared. We lived true to our roots on Saturday evening. Dirtbags, quasi-lunatics and happy. We marched into the hostel, unpacked our gear in front of the gas stove and melted into the couch. The place bustled with activity. The band played loudly. People came and went. The fire burned hot. The case ran dry. The hours dripped by and our eyelids slowly closed as the banjo pickers sitting on the pool table finally decided to call it a night and give their instruments a rest.

We rose early. A group of skiers from my hometown cooked breakfast in the kitchen. A young girl with a merry smile made lunch for her husband and friends. They accidentally took a bag of our food the previous morning, and we all shared a good laugh about the mistake. The Top Yough was calling. We said our goodbyes and hit the road. We would be back soon.

The day was glorious. Blue as blue gets with orange rays of sun trying hard to melt the snap of winter. The river was high. We bounded down stream losing gradient. We continued on for fifteen minutes and passed Muddy Creek Falls, the tallest waterfall in Maryland. We got out to take a peak. Time slipped. The boat was awkward and our momentum was lost. We pulled over, and I climbed the bank. I threw a rope down and we hauled our boats up the icy crag. Sometimes its just time to call it a day. No one likes to tuck tail and run, but best to save it for another day. We hiked below spires of blue ice and hero sized stalagmites of winter's hard work.

We arrived home tired and happy.