While thousands of people are still struggling with the aftereffects of Hurricane Helen, a few intrepid paddlers, taking a break from rescue efforts themselves, threw themselves at a task of secondary importance—but still meaningful—to local paddlers: checking out what happened to the Green River and its coveted Class V Green Rivers Narrows section from the flood, home of the annual legendary Green Race.
A video posted by local paddler Landon Miller, who tackled the run with a group of friends after the flood subsided, showed a completely transformed waterway, one barely recognizable from the run so many paddlers have been used to for so long. It was a completely new river, replacing the classic badge of courage with yet a new one. Kayakers who had memorized lines down such rapids as Gorilla and Sunshine Falls will now have to do all over again, keying off different sieves, holes, boofs and strainers. On the trip, Miller and his friends shouted out rapids as they came to them, most of them unrecognizable from what they had paddled before.
Below, we highlight a few soundbites from the team on the video (whose tagline reads: ‘Forever remember the memories of the old school Green, and welcome the challenges of the “New Green” #stout), as well as a handful of the comments the post received from local paddlers adding their two cents on the effort.
Watch Video Here:
Words from the Expedition Team
“There’s not one line that hasn’t been changed”
“The level might have been 20-22 feet… the river has completely changed and nothing is the same as it once was.”
“That is one raging river.”
“Dude, look at the kayak!”
“Oh my god. Like wow, this is incredible…I’m speechless. I’ve done a couple hundred laps out here, and have never seen it like this before.”
“That’s where the gage used to be.”
“Go Left is a completely changed rapid.”
“I honestly just got chills, I don’t know about ya’ll…there’s no more Notch, no more Chiefs, no more Zwicks, everything is different.”
“This is now the new Sunshine. Get in the hole and maybe make it, or get absolutely destroyed and get sucked down to wherever that goes. It would be pretty savage to do, honestly…”
Snippets From the Comments Section:
“Incredible to see how much it’s changed. The sieve on sunshine, the stoutness of Rapid Transit (where did that house-sized boulder on the left go?!), the Notch gone – REALLY?!, Go Left without.a river right sneak, Groove Tube no longer a tube at all.
“Sad to see the changes, but hopefully there’ll still be fun moves at “normal” levels, whatever that’ll be.
“Thanks for posting Landon! Appreciate it. The river looks beaten AF, I have a feeling over some years of high/low fluctuation it will slowly fill in and get better. But “100%” flows maybe manky for the foreseeable future.
“R.I.P. old friend…
“It’s like an old friend has died.
“No river is ever the same. Always sad to see classic rapids wiped away forever.
“This is wild to see. Does it look like Gorilla is still runnable, maybe on the right hand Christopher Columbus line? It looks like the pool above it is higher than it used to be (and there’s a boulder over the notch). Is that right? Sunshine looks like the opposite issue -the pool immediately above is lower, probably because the water is pouring through that siphon next to your foot.
“MODERN DAY PIONEERS! FOR ANYONE SAY THESE GUYS SHOULD BE OUT HELPING OTHERS….WELL THEY ARE. PEOPLE NEED THIS BETA.
“I guess you guys get rights on renaming some rapids now………1st descent and all. Not the same river. This is not the same as some Meadow creek West Va mild reshuffle of the river bed. The Green looks more like Cherry Bomb than the Green.