Kibler Valley on the rocks
| River: | Dan |
| Skill: | Novice+/Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 07/28/2012 |
Dan River, section 1
Level: 9,000 kilowatts
Participants: (K-1) Lorraine Burnham, Evan Pattishall, Paul Scrutton, Ian Pond, Rob Connelly, Kyle Connelly, Deborah Bird, Bob Brueckner
The theme for the 30th anniversary of the Kibler Valley River Run was "on the rocks in the valley," and many participants obliged by promptly ramming their boats into as many ledges and boulders as they could find at the top of the run. Then the boaters bounced along the river bottom and crawled up more rocks in search of their meandering canoes and kayaks.
The river was filled with the usual assortment of river-hardened boaters with finely honed skills slicing through Power House Rapids, girlfriends on their first river trip sitting in unfamiliar kayaks that were destined to turn over above the undercut rock at Basketball Falls, the Labrador retrievers swimming crazily through a rapid next to your boat, and the legions of tubers spinning effortlessly on the eddy lines that you had hoped to cross.
Our group split into the racers and cruisers, both of which managed to find a way through the rocks, boulders and tubers on a beautiful afternoon in a forgotten little valley somewhere in south-central Virginia.
The water was cool, the rapids were fun and the boaters were even cooler.
Speaking of which, speedsters Paul Scrutton won a trophy in the masters division and Lorraine Burnham won her hardware in the senior devision.
Paul was paddling a Stinger Remix in preparation for the New River Gorge Challenge, a 28.5-mile triathlon that takes place this coming Saturday (Aug. 4). His mission: Paddle seven miles down the gorge and bring untold glory to his team. Well, actually, he said, it was really just for the exercise.
After the winners collected their honors, we slipped back across the state line to Mount Airy where dinner time found us at Goober's 52 restaurant, which happens to be right next to Aunt Bea's BBQ (yes, the TV character's name is misspelled) on the Andy Griffith Parkway. At Goober's you can possible to order a rattlesnake margarita and purchase a tie-dye T-shirt, a combination that probably would have taken away Aunt Bee's breath on "The Andy Griffith Show."
But on this Saturday night, Goober's was just the calm before the thunderstorm and lightning show that we met in Greensboro and sloshed through for 50 long, slow miles back to Durham. Ah, what a day.
Bob Bruekner