Whitewater Rafting on West Virginia's New and Gauley Rivers

by Jay Young

  As early as the mid-1980s, ACE’s Ernie Kincaid knew that aggressive growth would be one key to success, and indeed, ACE now owns licenses from several earlier companies. “We started ACE by meeting in a room at the old Chuckwagon Motel, which became the Whitewater Inn, which is now a senior citizens’ home, I guess,” said Kincaid. “Then Daryl Johnson, who owned WV Whitewater, let us meet at his place for a while.”

  Eventually, ACE bought a river camp in Thurmond, and its growth spurt, which appears to be never-ending, began. The company purchased property in the town of Glen Jean, which became its headquarters. During its time there, ACE also purchased three smaller companies: Hell and High Water, Whole Earth Ohio and Whole Earth WV.

  When Imre Szilagyi and Appalachian Wildwaters expanded in 1985 and 1986 by purchasing companies in Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas, one of the owners he purchased from was Jerry Cook, who promptly took Szilagyi’s money, bought a large share of ACE and began to compete with AW in West Virginia.

  By then, ACE ran about eight thousand people per year down the two rivers, and its Glen Jean property was overflowing. “At the same time, we were merging with Whole Earth,” said Kincaid, “and the primary owner there wanted us to buy the property we’re on now. Everybody kind of liked the property, and to make the merger go, we went ahead and bought it—the central ninety-eight acres.”

  That property in Minden became the foundation upon which ACE would build the largest and most successful resort in the area. They sold their property at Glen Jean, which allowed them to build their first chalets. “The lodging is where the money is,” said Kincaid. “The money’s not in rafting. Just watch Adventures on the Gorge build as fast as they can. We told Dave Arnold years ago, ‘Build chalets, Dave!’”

  In more recent years, ACE purchased half of WV Whitewater at auction and a third of Drift-a-Bit and merged with both NARR and Jon Dragan’s original company, Wildwater Unlimited.

  But, said Kincaid, “the problem with the whitewater rafting industry is that people don’t want to raft in the winter. I don’t understand it,” he chuckled, “but they just don’t want to go. We’re sitting there with fifty-one cabins, eleven bunkhouses, a lounge and dining rooms—and everything empty in the wintertime. So obviously, we’ve got to change that.”

  On the other side of the gorge, similar doings were afoot.

  “It wasn’t a secret to anybody at all in the industry that it was shrinking,” said Paul Breuer of Mountain River Tours. Raft companies carry a huge amount of overhead, largely due to the fact that they cannot operate all year long in West Virginia, and over the course of years, Breuer and the boys from Class-VI had several informal discussions about joining forces. “We all recognized that if we merged and the numbers got up per outfit, then it was profitable again.”

  Discussions eventually became more serious. “Dave talked to me and said, ‘Hey there’s an opportunity here. What do you think?’” Breuer realized it was going to take a large amount of capital to put adventure vacations and West Virginia recreation back on the vacation map. “Singularly,” he said, “the rafting wasn’t it anymore. It was core, but not it. I recognized that the other people in this partnership were dedicated to the same things I was, and that’s when I really felt that the opportunity was great.”

  As raft numbers continued to slide throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, the industry shrunk in response, and not always painlessly. Overcapacity led to mass discounting and other practices to draw customers, but to little avail. Mostly, those outfitters only succeeded in making themselves less profitable. Some companies simply folded in response. Others sold their operations and permits to more growth-minded companies. Not everybody agrees that this change is for the best. Many look back fondly on simpler times, when there was the whitewater and nothing else really mattered. Ask a raft guide what he or she thinks is the most important key to a company’s success and you’ll likely hear: “The best raft trip.”

  Many of the owners and principals will disagree, though. “You can’t be just a great outfitter anymore,” said Dave Arnold emphatically. “You have to be a resort.”

  But even Arnold is not immune to the nostalgia of it all. He and pretty much every other raft company owner began their careers as guides, and you just can’t turn off that love of the river. “It was probably super healthy at the time for the industry to have, I think, thirty-seven permits at the height of it,” he conceded.

  A Wildwater raft emerges from the mist on Tumble Home, Gauley River, 1985. Butch Christian Collection.

  “That was the generation that had this wanderlust that you don’t see too much anymore,” added Breuer.

  ACE had been hard at work for years building an adventure resort, and leaping ahead of its competition, when Class-VI merged with Mountain River Tours and Rivermen. Paul Buechler led that merger and now serves as CEO of the conglomerate, Adventures on the Gorge. Buechler, himself a former raft guide, gave up his life as a successful financier to take an enormous pay cut and move to the gorge. That was not, however, his original intention. Buechler’s first thought was to purchase Class-VI. But when he looked at the books, he immediately noticed that the profitability, especially into the future, seemed weak. He met with the owners and told them, “I can give you a number, but…if I told you what your business was worth, you’d probably say thanks for coming, but we’re not interested.” Instead, Buechler suggested a roll up—combining more than one company into a merger of two major players.

  “It’s like putting any family together,” said Breuer. “There are always going to be bumps in the road and trials. But you learn, and hopefully you keep your core values in mind. That’s got to be key to anything.”

  Today, there are still a few small outfitters around. Cantrell Ultimate Rafting seems to be experiencing a small amount of growth, while New and Gauley River Adventures still plies the river and quietly keeps to itself. North American River Runners sold to ACE after years of rumors, and Songer was alive and well until early 2011, when it finally agreed to sell its equipment and license to Adventures on the Gorge. Of course, Rivers, Extreme Expeditions and Appalachian Wildwaters are all part of River Extreme Adventure Resort now. West Virginia Adventures is still happily in operation, as is Alpine Ministries, an outfitter that caters to Christian families.

  That’s seven companies, from a heyday of thirty-seven, and life for small outfitters is unlikely to get easier. “If you don’t have the capital to invest,” said Buechler, “it’s going to be harder to compete.”

  And yet, the outfitters’ main competition continues to be, not one another or even other rafting destinations, but other types of vacations in general. West Virginia ski resorts in particular developed offerings that made them more like year-round outfitters than winter-only destinations. They added downhill mountain biking, for example, which continues to be a huge draw and allows them to rely less and less on ski revenue. “Our real competition is cruise ships, the beach and Disney,” said Buechler. “This is the big enchilada because the market for seven-day vacations is huge. We don’t need a very big piece of that market to be successful.”

  Will adventure tourism in and around the New River Gorge succeed long-term? There is some hope. Even as the industry as a whole continues to shrink, the resorts are growing thanks to increased lodging and activities other than rafting. Overall raft numbers were up in 2010 for the first time in many years, a sign that—just maybe—the long slide has leveled out.

  The certain remaining obstacle appears to be that the industry as a whole has a public relations problem, namely that people don’t know what an adventure resort is. “That’s our challenge,” pointed out Buechler, “to get people to realize what our value proposition is—what you get when you come to an adventure resort.”

  Epilogue

  SWEET’S FALLS, PART II

  Two years to the day after I sat atop Video Rock and watched the ultimate Sweet’s Falls show unfold, I—a third-year raft guide—led my first pro
fessional trip down the Upper Gauley River.

  I had a crew of large, strong men who were more than capable of pulling our fourteen-foot raft downstream and avoiding rocks along the way. It was my check-out run, which means I also had Tansy Ferguson, an experienced Gauley guide, aboard to judge my performance. My crew was on day two of a bachelor party weekend, and after a bouncy bus ride, a couple of them seemed pale around the gills. They swore they were raring to go, though. I certainly was.

  By midday, we had successfully navigated almost all of the Upper Gauley’s major rapids—running lines pioneered by the likes of the Rodmans and Paul Breuer. Only one big drop remained—Sweet’s Falls. Looking back, the entire trip seems like a blur, except for Sweet’s, most of which I remember as clearly as if I were running it right now.

  We finished the rapid immediately upstream of Sweet’s and drifted into a green pool under a huge cliff on the right bank. I took advantage of the lull to explain the rapid we were about to run. “This is Sweet’s Falls,” I said. “It’s actually not so bad, if we’re on our line. We’re going to drift in along the right and take our time. I want this rapid to unfold slowly. If we get down there and we’re not in the right place, I want as much time as possible to correct. When we go over the main drop, I’m going to yell ‘Get down!’ You know what to do then. Hit the floor. Hold onto your paddles.”

  “After the falls, don’t pat yourself on the back. It won’t quite be over,” I continued. “We’re going to move right around a big boulder called Postage Due. At that time, I’m going to angle the boat toward river left and call a few back strokes. That’ll move us right.” To a man, they nodded their understanding.

  I further explained what to do if it all fell apart. “When I yell, ‘Get down!’ take a deep breath and hold it,” I advised, “because if we miss to the right, it’s going to be messy. If you swim, you might go deep, and you’ll want that air. When you get up and get breathing again, I want you to swim to the right bank.” I paused. “If we miss to the left, things may get, umm, violent for a moment, and we’ll probably all be in the water. You won’t have a lot of time, so when you get your bearings again, swim right hard. If you haven’t already lost your paddle by then…what on earth were you thinking? Drop it and get moving.” That got a nervous chuckle.

  “This is the last of the big ones,” I reminded them. “After this, we still have a ways to go, but all the really horrendous rapids will be behind us. We’ve had an amazing run so far, guys, and you’ve done a fantastic job moving the boat for me—in rapids far harder than this. Now, I need you one last time.”

  I was like a general rallying his troops for battle. My confidence was soaring, and I think, so was theirs.

  “One last thing,” I said. “This is the big stage.” I thought of all those who guided Sweet’s before me and, of course, of the carnage over the years. I wondered how many of its unfortunate victims had been in the same position I was in—on a check-out run with one big drop left to go. “As we move into this rapid,” I continued, “you may notice that there are quite a lot of people lining the banks watching. They want us to screw up. They want us too far right or left. They want us in the water and terrified. I want you to ignore them. Pay them no attention. Focus on the task. Got it?”

  “Got it,” they replied. I risked a glance at Tansy, who studiously averted her gaze. I knew what she was thinking. Don’t F this up, Greenie. Don’t put me in the water. No pressure.

  We drifted into the top ripples, and I could see the wave train that would carry us to the falls. I didn’t want to be directly in the middle of those waves—that might put us too far right. We needed to get left a bit.

  On either side of the river was land still owned by raft companies, and Sweet’s Falls was a stadium packed with their customers, private boaters and hikers who had come solely to see the show. I looked right and saw people everywhere. They were even on the cliff above us wearing crazed, hungry grins. Never in my life did I feel so judged. I couldn’t ignore them. They demanded my attention. There was no way to focus on anything but them.

  I dragged myself kicking and screaming back into the moment. We were too far right, but it wasn’t too late. I could adjust. I gave a little pry, pushing the back of the boat away from shore the tiniest amount. “One back!” I yelled over the growing roar of the river, and the crew dutifully back stroked once. The boat moved left just enough. I drew water toward me to straighten it. “One back!” I yelled again. They did so, and we slowed a bit. Slow was good.

  I needed to see the spray bouncing off Dildo Rock to get a true bearing. Where was it? The current of my world ebbed to a trickle and the rapid slowed to a crawl. I could hear the roar of the river, and I could feel my heart pounding as the horizon loomed ever closer and Sweet’s Falls opened up before and beneath us.

  I’d love to go into detail about our how our run through Sweet’s Falls ended, but oddly enough, it’s about where the clarity of my memory blurs again. We made it through cleanly, but like much of history, the finest details are lost forever.

  The history of rafting on the New and Gauley Rivers, though—what led us to now—is still there for us to see if we just turn around and look at it before we disappear around the next bend.

  But then again, the now has a way of sneaking up on us, doesn’t it, whether we pay mind to its course or not.

  If you’re fortunate enough to run these rivers, I hope you’ll pay attention to the whole experience. There’s a lot of history yet to be written, and sometimes, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see a show.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bayes, Rick. Whitewater Rafting Numbers 1994–2008. Fayetteville, WV: Rick Bayes. 2008.

  ———. Whitewater Rafting Numbers 2000–2010. Fayetteville, WV: Rick Bayes. 2010.

  Good, Gregory A., and Lynn Stasick. New River Gorge National River Administrative History. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, 2008.

  Lynn, Bob. “Wild Trip Down Wild River.” Enquirer, May 3, 1970.

  Marshall, John, et al. River Commission Report. Richmond, VA: Enquirer, February 1813.

  Palmer, Tim. Youghiogheny, Appalachian River. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984.

  Rodman, Sayre. “The First Run.” Highlands Voice 39, no. 12 (December 2006): 4–5.

  Smith, Jean Edward. John Marshall: Definer of a Nation. New York: Henry Holt and Co., LLC, 1996.

  Summersville TV and Eric Palfrey. Paddles of the Past. Video. Summersville, WV, 2008.

  Taft, Susan L. The River Chasers: A History of American Whitewater Paddling. Mukilteo, WA: Flowing Waters Press and Alpen Books Press, 2001.

  Trout, William E., III. The New River Atlas: Rediscovering the History of the New and Greenbrier Rivers. Lynchburg: Virginia Canals and Navigation Society, 2003.

  Virgin, Bill. “Hydroelectricity Study by Corp Due This Month.” Charleston [West Virginia] Daily Mail, October 15, 1981.

  WV Wildwater Association. Letter to members entitled “Fellow Riverrunners.” November 11, 1981.

  INTERVIEWS

  Arnold, Dave, Jeff Proctor and Bud Franz, December 9, 2010.

  Breuer, Paul, January 6, 2011.

  Buechler, Paul, March 11, 2011.

  Casto, Kim, and Agnes Casto, March 13, 2011.

  Ivey, Michael, January 19, 2011.

  Neal, Michael, December 20, 2010.

  Nibert, Larry, and Doug Ludwig, December 23, 2010.

  Palfrey, Eric, January 12, 2011.

  Proctor, Doug, November 3, 2010.

  Proctor, Jeff, March 11, 2011.

  Rahall, Nick, Congressman (D-WV, Third District), January 14, 2011.

  Trout, William E., III, December 20, 2010.

  Underwood, Bob, December 20, 2010.

  Walbridge, Charlie, January 3, 2011.

  Zoia, Jim, March 11, 2011.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jay Young has lived in the New River Gorge area for five years and worked as a whitewater guide for three of them. When he’s not running r
ivers or climbing rocks, he’s a freelance writer in nearby Fayetteville and is closely connected to the local rafting community. He says, “My time on the back of a raft left me with a profound appreciation for the quirkiness of this sport, this industry and the people who ply it. (We’re talking boatloads of quirk here.)”

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