Upper Gauley, Pillow Rock, Boat Transfer, CARNAGE.

Larry Horne · Post by **Larry Horne** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:30 pm

gotta agree w/oops.
it was amusing, but not really impressive.
blue angel swarm creeker?

how much flailing do you see blue angels doing. ... I know a sh!t show when I see (or am part of) one.

milkman · Post by **milkman** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:49 pm

Footage shot from a different angle of Alex on rock and getting into boat: http://youtu.be/zX77UbT6L-c

Cheeks · Post by **Cheeks** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:51 pm

That was pretty awesome to see the train of open boats going down pillow. I'm going to try like hades to train and be good enough next year to do it myself.

Kayak, canoe, raft, or board, if you're having fun and nobody gets hurt, you're doing it right!

tokebelokee · Post by **tokebelokee** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:57 pm

Alex's move was about the greatest boating moment I have seen firsthand or in video! I imagine if you asked a group of people--boaters and non-boaters alike--whether they would rather watch me catch the Notch eddy in an Outrage or watch Alex's boat transfer, I think I know what the answer would be. I'm sure a lot of us could try are hardest to swim to VW, and then have someone else swim upstream, etc., etc., and never repeat the events of two Saturdays ago. It was a once-in-a-blue moon intersection of circumstances and made everyone watching happy. Alex is even on the Leisuresportsphoto.com postcard now.

tokebelokee · Post by **tokebelokee** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:09 pm

Also, to Alex's credit, he can still have fun boating whether he styles or swims. I imagine I would have been so frustrated at swimming that I never would have climbed onto VW, much less hammed for the hundreds of cameras, grabbed a boat floating by, or generally entertained the Pillow crowd. Fortunately, Alex was chill enough to make the most out of a great moment.

horizongfx · Post by **horizongfx** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:17 pm

golder · Post by **golder** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:58 pm

wow! i hate a missed it! well done sir indeed.

looks like it was a heck of a show, a sh!t show at that, but a good 'un all the same.

the rest of the boating world may say what they want to about us, but they can't say we got no sense of humor.

we had a saying in WV when i used to push rubber up there: sometimes you watch the show, sometimes you are the show.

philcanoe · Post by **philcanoe** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:11 pm

tokebelokee wrote:Alex's move was about the greatest boating moment I have seen firsthand or in video! I imagine if you asked a group of people--boaters and non-boaters alike--whether they would rather watch me catch the Notch eddy in an Outrage or watch Alex's boat transfer, I think I know what the answer would be. I'm sure a lot of us could try are hardest to swim to VW, and then have someone else swim upstream, etc., etc., and never repeat the events of two Saturdays ago. It was a once-in-a-blue moon intersection of circumstances and made everyone watching happy. Alex is even on the Leisuresportsphoto.com postcard now.

Been there done that ... (almost) ... in the whitesail days,

have stepped out, emptied, and paddled away on that very rock. No one though much about it at the time, guess it's the carnage people notice?

yarnellboat · Post by **yarnellboat** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:24 am

I was more impressed by the tandem boat that was going where it wanted it to go, and the others who didn't swim(and of course Eli's surf!), but no doubt, great circumstances to get the second boat and go dor the transfer, great showmanship - I'm all for amusing, nice job!

Pat.

p.s. Not having seen the rapid in person, I'm not sure how I'd feel about running it myself, or how I'd enjoy my time on the rock, but with the benefit of video - at least I know it's safe to swim!

oopsiflipped · Post by **oopsiflipped** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 11:22 am

yarnellboat wrote: p.s. Not having seen the rapid in person, I'm not sure how I'd feel about running it myself, or how I'd enjoy my time on the rock, but with the benefit of video - at least I know it's safe to swim!

i'm not so sure about that one pat:

http://wvgazette.com/News/201109262715

2nd death there in two years.

philcanoe · Post by **philcanoe** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 11:41 am

oopsiflipped wrote: i'm not so sure about that one pat:

and

http://www.americanwhitewater.org/conte ... eid/31010/

BTW... picture show in link is at really low water

TheKrikkitWars · Post by **TheKrikkitWars** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:09 pm

tokebelokee wrote:I imagine if you asked a group of people--boaters and non-boaters alike--whether they would rather watch me catch the Notch eddy in an Outrage or watch Alex's boat transfer, I think I know what the answer would be.

Yeah, the boaters would want to see you make the notch eddy, and the non-boaters would want to see alex (or see you almost but not quite make the notch eddy

)

This said, I'm impressed by alex's inginuity and willing to let the situation play out calmly,

I also have a question for him... why seal-launch downstream, when an upstream launch could have been (comparatively) gently ferried out to river right?

Craig Smerda · Post by **Craig Smerda** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:59 pm

This might be the funniest video I've seen this year hands down... and major kudo's to Alex for taking it all in stride.

yarnellboat wrote:I was more impressed by the tandem boat that was going where it wanted it to go...

That'd be Roy Crimmins and Lynn Aycock... they tandem the Upper Gauley at least once every year.

Pillow is just one of those rapids that video doesn't do justice to until you see it in person for the first time... it's not terribly difficult but it'll get your attention for sure... and... it's the Upper Gauley man.

iRolled · Post by **iRolled** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 2:07 pm

As we were running pillow, I noticed the other boater upside-down in front of me. Me shifting my attention to him for that slight second was all it took to get off line and flip. But I did not swim. I set up for my roll and waited on the right moment to throw in the hip snap but I washed up on vw before I could strike. I instinctively grabbed the rock for some reason. And the boat was sucked away from me, leaving me stranded on the rock.

So what do you do when you're on vw on a festival weekend, and every camera is pointed at you. Do you cry, whimper, or throw a fit. Neither, you look at the cameras and you smile because it's all in good fun.

So I'm sitting there, still. I got the best seat in the house. Im Just checking it all out, taking it in, and wondering how in the world am I going to get off this rock. I look upstream and there is another canoe getting chundered in a big nasty hole. She threw a couple of involuntary enders and finally flushed out alongside her boat. I looked away for a second and when I looked back, her boat was right in front of me, within arms reach so I grabbed it, and the crowd went wild. I dumped the boat and pulled out the spare paddle and the crowd cheered even louder.

Ahh, yes. The Volkswagen seal launch.
Perhaps I should have adjusted the footpegs. It did cross my mind but I was having a hard enough time trying to wrestle with the boat and the current. Trying to stay on the rock was no cakewalk, but I'd done stuff like this before. Anyhow. I jump in the boat, take a stroke and it's nothing but comic disappointment after that. But I was there and I had fun. That's all that matters in my book.

Paddle Power · Post by **Paddle Power** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:05 pm

So what do you do when you're on vw on a festival weekend, and every camera is pointed at you.

where are the images!

C-Forum

Upper Gauley, Pillow Rock, Boat Transfer, CARNAGE.

Postcard