Well after much deliberation and closely watching the radar….I hopped in the Crush Mobile with MPG, Blue, and of course Orange Crush to take on West Virginia.  Although water levels were questionable at the time, rain was in the forecast and we knew the weather would pull through for the Hoosiers and Rapid Renegades.  12 hours after my departure from the Chicago area…we pulled into Camp Ceaser and the crew hit the hay immediately.  I for one, was not down for the count.  The White Castle I threw down earlier in the night decided to hassle me so I was forced to wrestle it down.

Friday called for rain all day…the weather man was wrong.  It trickled here and there but didn’t give us what we wanted.  The Upper Meadow did though.  After a tricky put in and approximately 12 scrapes of the Crush Mobile’s hitch…we finally made it down to the river and had an amazing time running conintuous III, -IV rapids.  We had a very successfull run and everyone had a blast.  The group consisted of MPG, Blue(he got his name on this trip), Orange Crush, Big Drop, Scarecrow, Big Chief, Anny, and myself.

After a little partying and lots of talk that night, we decided to check the levels in the morning but the Cranberry was the probable choice.  Sure enough…come next morning…we ate at the Hill Top Diner and headed for some technical creeking.  As the group ran shuttle, we figured the 15-20 people we had ready to run the river would be way too big so MPG, Blue, Scarecrow, and myself decided to head down.  None of us had run or much less seen this river before so we had little idea of what to expect.  To say we were pleasantly suprised would be a gross understatement.  We boat scouted everything and picked our way down this technical, fairly steep creek. 

Our first run went pretty fast so we loaded up the Crush Mobile and headed back up for another run.  We were more then willing to leave the Crush Mobile at the put in since it was loaded with beer…and we knew it would aggrivate Orange Crush.  However, on the way up, we ran into FooFoo who was more then willing to drive the Crush Mobile back down…we were hesitant, but we accepted.  About half way down our second run, we ran into the rest of our group…chuggin away in a group of 15, like little lemmings blindly following the colorful object in front of them.  Astonished they hadn’t split up into smaller groups, we messhed with them and led them down Cranberry Twist, a fairly technical rapid with a blind turn and a couple seams to punch through.  We decided to run this rapid twice and break it down as much as possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKjruJxHJ_s .  For the rest of the run, we decided to take matters into our own hands and split the group up and led people down the remaining class III boulder gardens.

If you have ever paddled or been to a festival with the HCC, you know they take over the scene…and Webster was no different.  Much bigger then last year, the camp grounds were packed and the party hut was jumpin.  Blue and Orange Crush took the party by storm and danced their heart out while the rest of us boozed and did whatever other vices we chose to indulge in. 

Perhaps the higlight of this trip would be the crowning of two new champions,  SPONGEBOB and I(RED BARON) OUTLASTED THE ORANGE CRUSH.  We taunted him and egged him to stay up, and a couple times he came out on the porch in his orange underwear, but the bed got the best of him and he crashed hard.

In addition to the hard partying and crowning of two new champs…the weather finally cooperated and it rained all night.  Although everyone wanted a quick run Sunday morning, the Back Fork of the Elk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eah58UiE3g4was on the rise and nobody could turn it down.  We put on Sugar Creek that was nearly busting at the seams.  Nobody in our group of 20 had seen this level before so we knew we were in for an epic run.  We split into two groups and made our way down.  The first few ledges went fine aside from a miscommunication and a terrible line on the first ledge but all was well.  I will spare you the juicy details of the debacle but we had yard sale on the third ledge and face smash on the second to last drop.  To say the least…we were ready to get off the river. 

All in all, everyone was ok, MPG drove the whole way home(thanks), and I got home at 4 am but it was worth it.

Here are a couple things we all learned on this trip: The trailer on the Crush Mobile needs to be fixed, everyone should carry a rope with them on the river, and WV is always an awesome time.

River Junky