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My father in law, Dick, now retired, spends his summers in West Virginia in the New River Gorge area being an adventure guide. He teaches repelling and leads hikes and biking trips but best of all KAYAKING and RAFTING! I approached him about a trip with some freinds of mine and we came up with the week of May 20th to the 25th as the best time to make the trip. We have some open spots so I thought I would bring it up on P-net and see if we could get a larger group of people interested. Other details:
It is $200 per person for the week which includes every single thing you can think of except for food, tent and travel. Limit- 8 people (18 and over) per group while rafting and repelling. (If more people want to go we will have to round it up to 8 more people.) Spouses and children are welcome to come and camp, hike and bike all they want for about $45 for the week.
Day 1: Arrival at USA Raft Campgrounds in Fayetteville, WV in the afternoon or early evening. We will go for about a 2 hour hike at sunset to a lookout over the New River Gorge to a place called 'Long Point' then hang out and make dinner or smores or whatever you want. It is about a 20 minute hike to Long Point where we will watch the sunset over the gorge then we will walk back in the dark (so bring a flashlight unless you are Superman and can see in the dark)
Day 2: We will go repelling in two spots. One is under the New River Gorge Bridge which is about 80 ft and the other is Ram's Head point which is about 150 feet down and directly over the gorge. (it's pretty breathtaking!) After that we may go for a hike to another cool place like Long Point or just veg out at the camp and do dinner.
(Dinner by the way, is whatever you want to bring with you, whatever the group decides they want to get at the store and cook up family style or wherever you want to go out to eat at. Surprisingly, there are some pretty decent restaurants despite it being in BFE including sushi (yes, real sushi), a giant chinese buffet, BBQ places and some light vegetarian, healthfoody type places. There are also plenty of drinking joints where you can drink with the local river guides!! One word of caution though: If you choose to drink at camp till late at night and don't get up for rafting at the ass crack of dawn with the rest of us, DO NOT whine to Dick about it! We WILL be on the river very early the next morning...)
Day 3: WHITE WATER RAFTING ON THE NEW RIVER!!! Guided tour of the river through class 5 rapids (including the infamous "Meat Grinder"!) The water will be very fast in May (which is a good thing, BTW...) Again with the hiking, biking, drinking and eating thing in the evening.
Day 4: Kayaking on the New River. Different part of the river. Class 2 and below. This is fun and a little more laid back but still enough to put a scare into you from time to time. We will be kayaking in inflatable kayaks which are open and very comfortable. They are commenly called "Ducks". More hiking and sight seeing. (There are too many places to mention.)
Day 5: Those who want can take off or stick around for another day of hiking, drawing, eating, sightseeing and dare I say repelling. (Dick loves him some repelling!) In any case though we may or may not have the campsite for the rest of the day and evening depending on Dick's schedule. If he has another group coming in we can stay for the night again maybe... As I said, it's pretty flexible but eventually you WILL have to go home.
Limitations and Guest Policy: Bring whoever you want to bring. There is no limit on the amount of people who can be in the campsite or the number of tents allowed in the campground. It would be very helpful to know how many to expect though so we can be sure to reserve the extra campsites. It will likely be booked full at this time and it may be difficult to secure a site the day of... Although you may bring whoever you want to go camping, THERE IS A LIMIT OF ONLY 8 PEOPLE WHO CAN GO RAFTING, KAYAKING AND REPELLING. 10 maximum fit into a raft (not including guide- Dick usually has another guide go with him) So it goes like this: Dick, myself and 8 of you.
If there are a lot of people in camp who would like to go repelling, he told me he may make two trips but that would mean less drops for the people who want to go and it also means we probably would not go to Ram's Head (which I totally want to do!) but instead we will spend most of the day under the bridge. If you are a climber and want to practice you can but it will not be under Dick's supervision because it is not his area of expertise. He has taught repelling for over 10 years and has a perfect safety record. He's crazy safe and takes this all VERY seriously. Poppa don't take no mess!
I'll have to ask him about kayaking. I am assuming since there will be a guide and because we won't be using Dick's own boats that there will be a limit of 10 folks including himself and I but I may be wrong. I know Dick will have his own boat so he may allow more people to come for kayaking. Anyways, 10 is a good number to start with.
I can't see any reason why there would be any limit on the number of people that could go hiking or biking as a group.
So here's the deal: I would like to know how many people are seriously interested. Seriously interested as in checking your calander and marking 5 days off as a vacation right now that is... If there are more than 8 folks who would like to go I will let him know and he may be able to get another guide to go with us and make it a bigger group
End of May will be cold. Dick can get us wetsuits and booties for watersports if needed. It will be very pretty as well with all of the new growth on the mountains.
SO THERE YOU GO- Please post any comments, questions or desires to go. I will make a list and if there is a seriously large group of us who want to go we can make it two trips.
Please let me know ASAP if you would like to go. I will need to know no later than April 15th so he can reserve that week for us.
It is $200 per person for the week which includes every single thing you can think of except for food, tent and travel. Limit- 8 people (18 and over) per group while rafting and repelling. (If more people want to go we will have to round it up to 8 more people.) Spouses and children are welcome to come and camp, hike and bike all they want for about $45 for the week.
Day 1: Arrival at USA Raft Campgrounds in Fayetteville, WV in the afternoon or early evening. We will go for about a 2 hour hike at sunset to a lookout over the New River Gorge to a place called 'Long Point' then hang out and make dinner or smores or whatever you want. It is about a 20 minute hike to Long Point where we will watch the sunset over the gorge then we will walk back in the dark (so bring a flashlight unless you are Superman and can see in the dark)
Day 2: We will go repelling in two spots. One is under the New River Gorge Bridge which is about 80 ft and the other is Ram's Head point which is about 150 feet down and directly over the gorge. (it's pretty breathtaking!) After that we may go for a hike to another cool place like Long Point or just veg out at the camp and do dinner.
(Dinner by the way, is whatever you want to bring with you, whatever the group decides they want to get at the store and cook up family style or wherever you want to go out to eat at. Surprisingly, there are some pretty decent restaurants despite it being in BFE including sushi (yes, real sushi), a giant chinese buffet, BBQ places and some light vegetarian, healthfoody type places. There are also plenty of drinking joints where you can drink with the local river guides!! One word of caution though: If you choose to drink at camp till late at night and don't get up for rafting at the ass crack of dawn with the rest of us, DO NOT whine to Dick about it! We WILL be on the river very early the next morning...)
Day 3: WHITE WATER RAFTING ON THE NEW RIVER!!! Guided tour of the river through class 5 rapids (including the infamous "Meat Grinder"!) The water will be very fast in May (which is a good thing, BTW...) Again with the hiking, biking, drinking and eating thing in the evening.
Day 4: Kayaking on the New River. Different part of the river. Class 2 and below. This is fun and a little more laid back but still enough to put a scare into you from time to time. We will be kayaking in inflatable kayaks which are open and very comfortable. They are commenly called "Ducks". More hiking and sight seeing. (There are too many places to mention.)
Day 5: Those who want can take off or stick around for another day of hiking, drawing, eating, sightseeing and dare I say repelling. (Dick loves him some repelling!) In any case though we may or may not have the campsite for the rest of the day and evening depending on Dick's schedule. If he has another group coming in we can stay for the night again maybe... As I said, it's pretty flexible but eventually you WILL have to go home.
Limitations and Guest Policy: Bring whoever you want to bring. There is no limit on the amount of people who can be in the campsite or the number of tents allowed in the campground. It would be very helpful to know how many to expect though so we can be sure to reserve the extra campsites. It will likely be booked full at this time and it may be difficult to secure a site the day of... Although you may bring whoever you want to go camping, THERE IS A LIMIT OF ONLY 8 PEOPLE WHO CAN GO RAFTING, KAYAKING AND REPELLING. 10 maximum fit into a raft (not including guide- Dick usually has another guide go with him) So it goes like this: Dick, myself and 8 of you.
If there are a lot of people in camp who would like to go repelling, he told me he may make two trips but that would mean less drops for the people who want to go and it also means we probably would not go to Ram's Head (which I totally want to do!) but instead we will spend most of the day under the bridge. If you are a climber and want to practice you can but it will not be under Dick's supervision because it is not his area of expertise. He has taught repelling for over 10 years and has a perfect safety record. He's crazy safe and takes this all VERY seriously. Poppa don't take no mess!
I'll have to ask him about kayaking. I am assuming since there will be a guide and because we won't be using Dick's own boats that there will be a limit of 10 folks including himself and I but I may be wrong. I know Dick will have his own boat so he may allow more people to come for kayaking. Anyways, 10 is a good number to start with.
I can't see any reason why there would be any limit on the number of people that could go hiking or biking as a group.
So here's the deal: I would like to know how many people are seriously interested. Seriously interested as in checking your calander and marking 5 days off as a vacation right now that is... If there are more than 8 folks who would like to go I will let him know and he may be able to get another guide to go with us and make it a bigger group
End of May will be cold. Dick can get us wetsuits and booties for watersports if needed. It will be very pretty as well with all of the new growth on the mountains.
SO THERE YOU GO- Please post any comments, questions or desires to go. I will make a list and if there is a seriously large group of us who want to go we can make it two trips.
Please let me know ASAP if you would like to go. I will need to know no later than April 15th so he can reserve that week for us.