Coastals

I’m coordinating the intermediate trips on the Upper New for the summer gathering. I’m planning to camp at Ray’s Campground and arrive early Friday evening. If you’re staying in the campground, we may try to consolidate boats there to save shuttle time, but we’ll see how many are coming.

On Saturday, we will run the section from Thurmond to Cunard (the Surprise section).
Meet at the Gorge Bridge Visitor’s Center at 9:00 a.m. We’ll put in at Dunglen (near Thurmond) and take out at Cunard.

On Sunday, we’ll put in at Glade Creek Campground and take out at Grandview Sandbar Campground. We’ll also meet at the Gorge Bridge Visitor Center at 9:00 a.m. This is a shorter run with a shorter shuttle, and the take-out is about 25 minutes from Beckley, so most people have a shorter drive home afterwards.

Let me know by Thursday if you’re joining us either day, including how many people and boats are in your group.

This section has a lot of flatwater with perhaps five Class 2 rapids and the Class 3 Surprise rapid near the end. The river level is in the lower runnable stage now.

For more about the Summer Gathering itself, read this post:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17371

Martha and i will see you 9 am both Sat and Sunday morning at the Visitors center.
We will both be in my car.

It looks as if we might be able to consolidate boats and gear at the Visitor’s Center and drop two vehicles at the Cunard take-out, then head to the Dunglen Put in. This will save about an hour of shuttle time.

If you can have room for riders and gear in your vehicle and have your river gear ready to go, so you can put it in someone else’s for the ride to the putin, that will speed things up.

The river level is up slightly which is good; the forecast is for showers (50 -60% chance) with temperatures in the high 70’s. Sunday’s is cloudy and mid-80’s.