FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — The annual fall rafting season on West Virginia’s Gauley River is underway.
For the next six weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will do controlled releases of water from Summersville Dam downstream into the Gauley River. The scheduled releases create some of the best whitewater rafting rapids in the eastern United States.
“It’s busy. It’s really busy. Hundred and hundreds of people from about every state in the union,” said Jerry Cook, co-owner of Ace Adventure Resort in Fayette County.
Ace it one of the commercial outfitters who has been in the rafting business for decades.
“Our numbers have fluctuated over the years, but it’s been pretty steady for us. We have thousands of people who will be through here over the next six weeks,” he explained.
During previous years, those who ran the Upper Gauley got in the raft next to the impressive and often intimidating flumes blowing discharged water out at the bottom of the dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has since changed the outflow to a different system which releases the water at the base of the dam. The change did away with the dramatic release, but the same water is released below the surface. The discharge still creates the same level of rapids downstream.
“We’ve had people go to the put in, look at it and get back on the bus. So this might be an advantage,” laughed Cook.
This year’s rainy weather kept Summersville Lake at summer pool and insured a full season of drawdown releases which culminate on Bridge Day, the third Saturday in October. Cook said that rain has also flushed a lot of the colder water from the bottom of the lake and created warmer water being released from the dam.
The six-week Gauley Season can often be an early Christmas for commercial outfitters and bring in the largest share of their annual revenues in just a six week time frame.