Lower Meadow 3900 + 19k Gauley

Early in my creeking days, the Meadow was a doable day trip from Richmond and I came to love for the river/creek style of the run. Pushy, creeky, cool boofs but also a big water feel. Once I came to Virginia Tech, the Meadow under 2 hours away, I picked Stewart Caldwell's brain about the character of the river as it gets higher and higher. Stewart was one of the few to ever run it above 2500 CFS, and he pushed up into the 4000-5000 range on the old guage. He gave me tons of phenomenal beta so I knew what to expect, and the starts aligned for me, Ethan Frangenburg, and Patrick Sheehan to hop on at 3700 CFS after Hurricane Ian. Luckily theres a trail along most of the river, so we took it slow and it ended up going really well. Combine that with the Gauley releasing maximum flow out of the damn (around 15000 CFS), we had a scary but satisfying day on big water creeking, into really really big water Gauley. Stewart thinks it's the highest descent ever, as supposedly you add 30% to the new guage level, but regardless I can't wait to get back in there at these flows.

[WillVTT]

1:44 😮, huge. I wouldn’t want to paddle into that curler but way to go 👊

[ethanfrangenberg]

One of the best days of kayaking ever dude

[MTB_Rider_]

That's Effing Insane! I thought the Browns Canyon and the Royal gorge on the Arkansas were insane at 4800cfs, but that was next level. A level above my pay-grade for sure.