White Water Rafting at New River , WV

WAW. What A Weekend.

What a long weekend!
This was one of the best adventurous weekends I had so far.

I went White Water Rafting in West Virginia (WV) on the New River Gorge.
It all started on Thursday when I decided to change plans from relaxing at the Nags Head beach to rafting. Saravanan, was cool with the change of plans.

I decided to book a cabin this time, as I love staying in the woods. A welcoming break from the hustle bustle city crowd.

I booked my cabin at Rifrafters Campground

This was so cheap. Only $15 per person, per night. The cabin pictured in the website is the same cabin where we stayed. More pictures in trip album.

I also reserved a trip with ACE Adventure Center.
I decided to do the Lower New River Whitewater rafting.

Saravanan drove all the way from Delaware on Friday evening and reached home around midnight. We then started the next day afternoon to Fayetteville, West Virginia. It was almost 4 hours drive from Richmond, VA.


Our Cabin in the Woods

We checked-in our cabin that evening and started out to see the New River Gorge Bridge, which is the largest arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It was just 2 miles from our cabin.

We went to the bridge, took lots of pictures. We also went hiking near the bridge. Got some super awesome pictures from the top of the mountain.


New River Gorge


New River Gorge Bridge


New River Gorge and the Bridge


Rafters

Then we drove all the way down to the river and spend some time there. The drive through the gorge was adventurous.

Then we came to our cabin and settled for the night.

The next day we got up early and went to ACE to start our adventure.
The rafting trip was 16 miles with around 30+ rapids.
2 of them were Class V rapids. The remaining 70% of them were Class IV and the rest Class III and Class II. Class VI rapids are the most dangerous, Class V following it.
Very few have survived a fall in Class VI rapids.
It’s that dangerous.

It was a full day trip. The trip started at 1030.
Our guide was a super awesome girl called Erin. She was really good and funny.
Morning we came across few Class II, III and IV rapids.
We did all rapids perfectly. There were 7 including Erin, in our raft. One Chinese guy called Peter kept falling off the raft so often. Wherever there was a chance of falling, he fell in the river.
He was very funny.

After a while there was a huge rock, besides the river. It was like 20-25 feet high. People were allowed to jump from the rock into the river. I was so nervous at first attempt. Standing at the cliff and looking down the river, I backed off.
On my next attempt, I just took a deep breath and jumped. This time I only looked down at the river after jumping. Even though I’m not a good swimmer, I had a PFD. So I did a pretty good job after I jumped into the river. I surfaced and was enjoying my swim in the river. That was amazing experience.

Then after some time, we were allowed to swim at a different place where the river was little calm. Then we banked on the river to have lunch. Lunch was some sandwich, got by ACE.

After lunch we started the second part of our journey. This segment had 2 Class V rapids and lots of Class IV rapids. We managed to get through all of them. Peter, as usual kept falling in the rapids. We also did surfing in the rapid holes.

Man , surfing was one hell of a wild adventure. Tons of water pouring over us and the raft and the raft tossing and turning in all directions, sometimes about to flip-over, WOW, white water rafting kicks ass dude.
Even though the surf lasts only few seconds, those few seconds can be very wild. Trust me.

Then it was like almost 6 in the evening. Our adventurous white water rafting came to an end. We all deflated the raft and boarded the bus to base camp. It was so good to taste some refreshing beer on the bus.

Then later at the base camp, we went to the bar with Erin. I bought her a drink and was hanging out for a while in the bar. It was lot of fun. Erin was very funny and very excited, even though she had done this so many times. Then after a long day I called it a night and drove back to the cabin for some good sleep.

The next day we got up and packed our stuff and started our journey back to Richmond.

Overall, it was a wild adventurous weekend. Lots of fun.
Gonna do it again