As we were sitting at the picnic table at James River State Park a couple of weeks ago, I lamented that we had no plans for Fourth of July. Seems un-American for a camping couple to sit home on the Fourth, especially when it falls on a weekend, right? So I made reservations for July 3 and 4 at the only SP with vacancies for a camper--Breaks Interstate. Yikes. that's a long way.
During the week working up to the trip it became apparent that a trip we had booked for First Landing later in the month wasn't going to work out due to some scheduling issues, so we transferred those two nights and made Breaks a four night stay. That's a much better length of time for a park that's a full day's drive away!
We packed up the camper and the kayaks and got on the road early Thursday morning. We were looking forward to kayaking and fishing in the lake, and even though my research had shown that the nearby river, the Russell Fork, was a serious Class IV-V+ river in October when they have dam releases, I was confident that there would be a section that novices like us could handle in July when the river was low.
Oh, confidence, though has cast me into peril yet again.
The trip got off to bang--literally--with a blown out tire on the camper on I-81 near the Virginia Horse Center. We felt the vibration immediately and pulled off onto the closest exit, which just happened to be the one we usually take for the Howard Johnson's and Day's Inn. The tire was completely shredded by then and had actually torn up the fender as well. I parked the camper in a shady spot and we changed the tire. Thank God for the impact wrench. Those lug nuts were on there tight!
Back on the road, I was feeling pretty nervous about driving around on two new tires and two old tires, one of which had been sitting in the sun on the back of the camper for over a year, without a spare. So we pulled into Camping World, just a few miles down the road, to look into picking up a replacement. They directed us to Tractor Supply next door. $132.47 later, we had a new spare (ugh) and we were back on the road.
These stops slowed us down quite a bit and it was about 4:00 or so when we finally made it to Breaks. We drove through the entrance gate--and they charge people coming in to camp for a day's parking on top of the camping fee! not cool!--and went to check in. That was the first real indication that we weren't in true Virginia State Parks any more.
The check in hut/store, roughly the size of my laundry room, was stuck on the side of the tiny park road. There is no parking. There's one pull off area that would handle a pick up truck nicely but not campers. And it was Fourth of July weekend, so there were about four people with campers trying to find places to wait while a member of their party checked in. Basically, the road was completely blocked. There was just nowhere to go. All of the roads are tiny and very steep.
Finally we were checked in and started looking for spots. We were slated for a 30 foot "green" spot, and the guy at check in told us Campground D was our best bet. We drove off to D and while we found three or four "green" spots, there was no way we were getting our camper into them. Everything at Breaks is small. When they say "30 ft", they don't mean it will fit a 30 foot camper and the attached truck. They mean the spot is exactly 30 feet long. Eventually we just parked it in a field spot, pretty much the only one we could get in to.
Of course, it was Fourth of July weekend (I may have mentioned that, right?) and that means every family with kids between 2 and 15 were out camping. And all of them were at Breaks, staying in campground D. And most of them couldn't have cared less where their kids were. Literally. We had kids running all over the campground, through people's campsites, and getting into all kinds of mischief. Our spot was particularly popular since there was open field around it. I just knew one of those baseballs was coming through the camper window before the weekend was over.We threw some chicken on the grill and settled in for the first night. The weather was gorgeous, clear and about 70. By 7:00 or so at night it was starting to drop and we quickly got a little chilly, so we went in for the evening to watch a movie before bed.
We spent the next morning kayaking on the little lake, pretending to fish. We didn't get any bites but it was pretty just the same. The weather was amazing. After we got off the lake, we drove into the little town of Elkhorn City, KY, in search of information about the river. Driving down Route 80, the view is simply amazing. There are overlooks if you can get to them without being killed by the traffic, which moves ridiculously fast for tiny mountain roads.
Farther down the road, we saw a sign for the Breaks Park River Access. Breaks Park has it's own river access?? Amazing, because no one that works at the park seemed to even know there was a river nearby. The folks there are the least helpful park employees I have ever met.
We pulled into the river access and saw what looked like a nature scene from somewhere in Colorado. Canyon walls, big river rocks, and green water. It was gorgeous. We saw people putting in with floats and inner tubes, and decided that even if we couldn't find information about actually kayaking from Point A to Point B on the river, this looked like a place where we could put in and paddle around for awhile. We decided that would be the plan for the next day. 
We continued on into town and stopped at a little pizza place that seemed to be the only place open. We talked to the waitress about people who did river shuttles and the like, and she hooked us up with her boss via the phone. We ordered a pizza (it took forever, and the place is hereby known as "Three Hour Pizza" from now on) and after lunch got a few things at the grocery store before heading back.
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| Isn't every town's "Visitor Information Center" closed during the summer? |
On Saturday, we woke up to find that our neighbors, "Punkin" and his family, were leaving. They had a "green" spot just above us on a little hill right off the road. It was a lovely spot and we decided to move our campsite for the next two nights to get off the field. That took about half an hour of good honest sweat, but it was worth it--Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be a bit warmer, and there was nice shade up on the hill.
The bolt on my kayak's seat hinge was gone again, so I needed to find a replacement before I tried to kayak the river. We picked up a couple at the auto parts store. Then we took the yaks to the river access to play in the water. We ran into the president of Friends of the Russell Fork, and finally got some info. The access we were at is called "Ratliff Hole" or "Rat Hole" for short, and the run from there to town is just over 2 miles. There are a couple of dicey spots, in particular the Meatgrinder, a Class III, and the Pinball, a longish section of Class II's. He showed us these on the back of his "Friends of the Russell Fork" t shirt, which has a cartoon of the river map on it.
We finally got into the water to play. What a great spot! The access is right at the bottom of a small rapid, and you can paddle into the bottom of it and ride the log flume down. We did that over and over for a while. It was fun!
The water was on the colder side of cool--perfect for a 74 degree day--and clear green. The rocks were HUGE, both under and above the water. There's no sand to speak of, just beaches of rock. The canyon walls were very alien looking to Virginia (well, I guess we were technically in Kentucky then) and I took too many pictures of them.
We spent some time paddling, pretending to fish, and enjoying the beautiful scenery and lovely day. The temperature was perfect--just warm enough that the cool water felt good, but not too hot.
Just around the river bend (ha!) there is a huge rock that juts out into the water. People were jumping off this rock into the water. It's about 20 feet high! I thought they were crazy until someone told me that people jump off the railroad trestle just beyond, too. That trestle is about 60 feet up there! Crazy people, I tell you, Crazzzzzeeeeee. The locals said that no one knew how deep the water in that hole was. No one had ever been able to get to the bottom. That made me feel a little better, but still. From the trestle??
After the trestle, the river gets to a choke point with some rapids. The really cool part is that even there, there's no current to "take" you out of the option round and into the rapids. You can even pull up on the side of the island and walk around. If you want to go down the rapids and continue on the river you have to paddle over and around.
After playing for quite a while in the river, we went back to Breaks. We stopped in the Visitor's Center and bought a couple of Friends of the Russell Fork t shirts for posterity. Then it was time for grilled Italian sausage with peppers and onions for dinner. I was sad to find that the sourdough rolls I'd bought for the trip and started to get blue spots already. Ugh. Humidity is not good for bakery items. We ate the sausage and peppers plain but I knew I had to get rolls for the next night--Italian beef in the crockpot. We also put a call in to Three Hour Pizza's owner, trying to set up a ride for the next day, but he didn't answer.
After dinner, it was finally just warm enough to sit out and have a fire--if you pulled your chair close to the fire, that is. It was lovely. I enjoyed sitting there with my iPad, reading. I had already finished Dr. Sleep and Joyland, and was starting Mr. Mercedes. It was a Stephen King kind of trip, that's for sure!
On Sunday, we drove back into town. We still needed to find someone to give us a ride back to the river access when we parked the truck. We tried the gas station, since Three Hour Pizza was closed on Sunday and the owner never called back anyway. No joy. We decided to go back up and just paddle around in the same place again.
On a whim, in the parking lot at the river access Dave asked some guys if they would give him a ride for a few bucks...and they agreed. I remember thinking "Oh crap" when I heard them say yes. That meant we were committed to paddling a section of this river, knowing nothing except that it was dangerous as hell in spots. No map, no clue, no nothing. As Dave pointed out, we had our shirts to use as maps! Brother. It was about this time that I realized...I'd forgotten to bring my water shoes. All I had were the flip flops I had on. Somewhere in here I should've known: we'd lost our minds.
While Dave was being shuttled back from town by the random guy (who turned out to be an Army Ranger and a good guy), I was making small talk with a couple of older guys in the river access parking lot. Turned out that one of them had run the river many times. He and his buddy, a complete novice, were about to run from Rat Hole to Elkhorn City, just like us. They were paddling a canoe, and I figured we could do as well as a big old canoe. Right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Dave and I got in the river and headed out through the half mile section we paddled around in yesterday. We headed around the island and looked down the first little section of rapids--the ones we'd scouted yesterday and said "Ooooh! Fun! Those look great!"
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| I was freaked out by this. I don't like anything that looks like it could trap you. |
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| Dave heading into the mouth of the rapids |
As we bailed, dumped, and debated, the guys I'd been talking with at the access came along in their 14 foot canoe and navigated the previously mentioned evil rapids with no problem. Grrrrrr. They pulled up next to us to dump some water and asked if we were ok. We explained that we'd just been schooled by the river and that we immediately knew we were attempting something well above our skill set.
The two guys introduced themselves as John, a professor of philosophy, and Joel, a former chef, early childhood education specialist, professor of English, and now a "horticultural assistant". John was the river expert and he suggested that we tag along with them. He would scout us through the best he could. He did mention (100 or so times over the course of the day) that we had exactly the wrong kind of boats. "Those are lake kayaks," he said. "They're good for flatwater." I told him I knew they weren't whitewater boats, but we took them on Class II's fairly often. He looked at me. I knew he was right. What idiots we were.
The thing about the Russell Fork is that there are a lot of rapids. A lot. The James and Rivanna are mostly flat water with a couple of riffles and an occasional Class I, sometimes an almost-Class II thrown in to keep it interesting. On the Russell Fork, it was rapids-rapids-rapids with a pool at the bottom, and then you were into the next set of rapids. And it wasn't *A* Class II, but rather a series of Class II's together.
Even before we got to the Meatgrinder there was plenty of water happening. And then we came around a bend and saw HUGE rocks on the right side and a crazy amount of whitewater running down the left. I can see why they call it the Meatgrinder. I wasn't too worried about it, though, as I'd read and been told that you could portage the Meatgrinder to the right. What no one said was that to portage it, you had to climb over these great big rocks carrying your boat. That would be easy with a 40 pound styrene whitewater boat, but not so easy with the ten footers! Oh, and the no shoes thing was really coming back to bite me, too.
John took the canoe down the Meatgrinder alone while Joel carried their gear over the rocks. Dave and I struggled to get the first yak over the rocks. It wasn't pretty. The lack of shoes was killing me. Joel came back after dropping off his gear and took my end of the yak the rest of the way for me. Great guy! Then John came back up after beaching the canoe and volunteered to paddle Dave's yak down the Meatgrinder so we wouldn't have to carry it. WOW! He made it most of the way, then got stuck and swamped at the last falls. He managed to get the yak free and once again, Dave's boat finished the rapid without its paddler. This was to be a theme for the day.
We had a few more no-name rapids after that and we had to stop often and dump the kayaks. I think I drained that thing more on this trip than all the other times I've ever had to, combined. Seriously. We were concerned about the Pinball because even though it's "only" Class II's, it's a lot of them and you have to bounce back and forth from side to side of the river--"Pinball", get it? Maneuvering those big yaks on the river is a challenge at times.
Finally we started through the rock maze that makes up the Pinball. John and Joel went first and I followed. After halfway through I was taking on a good bit of water but I was still in control, and having fun. I came around one turn and saw John and Joel pulled off to the side bailing, but I was too close to the next drop and had to continue on by myself. Yikes, now I was scouting my own path through a maze of rock and rushing water. The adrenaline was running as high as the water!
I got through the whole Pinball without flipping, getting stuck, or swimming, although my yak had so much water in it by the end that it was handling like a pregnant elephant. I pulled over to dump it and John and Joel joined me a few minutes later to bail. They were so impressed that I made it straight through without having to bail, and without a scout, that they nicknamed me "The Pinball Wizard" on the spot! We waited for Dave...and waited..and waited. I figured he had stopped halfway through to dump his boat, but once I was done draining mine and he still hadn't made it through I was getting worried. John looked worried too and he started trying to find a way back by foot to find him.
Turns out Dave had gotten his boat stuck between some rocks and it was fully flooded. He couldn't free it. I would love to tell this story, but I wasn't there...so I'll let Dave describe it in his own words:
When we got to the Pinball, which was the last of what we were told was going to be the big 3 major difficult sections we were going to have to complete, John & Joel went first to scout the line followed by Lin with me bringing up the rear. Like all of the rapids on the Russell Fork you had to get through them in stages. When John stopped at a spot halfway through to bail out some water, Lin got there and just kept going, completing the rest of the Pinball scouting the line herself and earning the nickname "Pinball Wizard".
When I got to that spot I watched John carefully so I would know the right line. They had gone down to the right of this very large rock hugging it tightly as they then had to go to the left immediately after that to exit the rapid. I followed and was initially pleased with the progress that I was making as I made it past the large rock, but as I cut left the nose of my kayak went down almost against the rock in the left front and the rear of my kayak swung around violently, turning sideways and instantly dumping me out and completely filling with water. I managed to stand up on the back side of the large rock which was about 7 or 8 feet tall and maybe 15 feet across. I looked at my kayak and could not believe how completely and perfectly it had become wedged in place. It was exactly perpendicular to the flow of the river and was being pushed against a rock on the back side of the kayak, actually deforming it in the middle. I looked around and everyone else was well down the river from me and with many large rocks all around me there was no way for them to see me and shouting for help was also out of the question over the roar of the river. I really did not know what I was going to do and leaving my kayak there permanently actually and seriously seemed like the best and only solution. I tried to unwedge the kayak at both ends and with the complete flow of the river against it, it did not even budge. The front of the kayak was sort of pointed toward where I needed it to go, so I was going to concentrate of freeing the front as I could not see anything holding the front in place unlike the backend of the kayak that I could see was up against an unmovable bolder. I actually started to wedge myself down into the foot wide space between the large boulder at my back and the nose of my kayak to try and get my hands underneath it to try and unwedge it, and as my face got down right to the water level a little voice became loud in my head saying "Dummy, if you slip on the moss covered rocks you are going to end up trapped under your kayak and drown." After realizing that my kayak wasn't worth drowning over my next thought was whether I could wait there for the next kayaker to come along, but they would not have been able to help me either just probably would have slammed in to me or my kayak. Finally, I decided to climb up out of the water and get on top of the large boulder at my back so I could maybe signal someone that I was in trouble. I stood on the front of my kayak and it easily supported all 250 pounds of my weight without moving an inch. When I got to the top of the rock I did see John working his way down along the shore trying his best to get to me. At least knowing that he had come back for me made me feel a lot better. So my final thought was that maybe I could wedge myself against the boulder and press out against my kayak with my legs and free the front end. I pushed with everything I had and the front did actually turn a little, so I redoubled my efforts and it moved some more. Now I felt that I might actually be able to get out of this impossible situation and started really kicking with both feet with everything I had. The kayak came loose and actually exited the the rest of the rapids. My plan had been to swim out the same way as the kayak, but the second I was no longer standing on the front of my yak I slipped and was immediately bopping along in the current trying to avoid the worst of the rocks. I popped out maybe 25 yards later collected my yak. Lin went and fetched my paddle that I had flung as soon as I saw that my yak was completely wedged in and that I was not going to be paddling out of there. Finally John helped me empty the water out and thankfully I was able to press out the bulge where the river had deformed my yak. I really abused my poor little 10 foot lake kayak and it came through for me!
Eventually, after his kayak joined us in the pool below the Pinball, he came swimming down the last of it. I went and collected his paddle and gear, he dumped his kayak (again), and we were off. We were so relieved that we were through the "worst" of it. Of course, there was still plenty of Class II's, and worse, low skritchy spots that caused hang ups and flooded boats. It was a fight all the way to Elkhorn City, and God bless him, John came back time and again to help us when we got stuck. At one point he was standing on a couple of rocks literally yanking my yak--with me in it!--around to get it unstuck.
Finally, finally, finally we got to town. Joel gave Dave a ride to the parking lot where he'd left the truck while I watched the gear. We loaded everything up, hugged the guys again for saving us, and went to the store in search of rolls. Oh yeah, remember that we still needed rolls? Funny how life goes on even when you nearly drown. Dinner was ready when we got back to the camper (thank goodness) and was delicious. We were both too tired to sit out at a fire that night so after showers and food we were in bed with disaster movies on the TV and Stephen King to read.
On Monday morning we had a quiet breakfast and stayed long enough to finish our books. We packed up, showered, and were on our way home. The trip is ridiculously long and we didn't get back until after dinner, but we had no emergencies on the way home, thankfully.
