Almost halfway through the year, and Monday the 20th of June was the first day of Summer. That Strawberry Moon was amazing. (Kept me up. How about you?) Not to mention it was West Virginia Day, too. Oh, and the record-breaking heat wave out west— yikes!
Your cabin in the woods
We are cooler than most places. I am not talking about Fayetteville, WV, “Coolest Small Town,” and lots of cool restaurants that do farm-to-table. I am talking about the temperature.
The New River Gorge is a breeze machine. Yep! It is so big, it creates its own wind. We are up there (more than 2000 feet). That helps cool things off.
Your Cabin in the Woods is at least 10 degrees cooler just because it is in the shade of the forest canopy. Up here on the plateau, we rarely get over 90 degrees, and the nights cool off nicely, thank you.
Then we have lots of cool, cool waters: Summersville Lake, the Gauley River and of course the New River, although she gets pretty warm come August (but still very refreshing.)
It is half way through the year, and you need a break. Call us to book a cabin, and we promise it will be cool.
Holy. Moly. I know I’ve got rental cabins and everything, but it’s Gauley Season.
You know the river I’m talking about? On of the 10 best white water rafting rivers in the world? With more than 100 rapids on it? And 5 (some people say 6) Class V rapids in between all those other ones?
The infamous Pillow Rock rapid on the Gauley River.
How can I explain it? Gauley Season is just a special time around here. First of all, the weather changes. Summer is awesome, but the humidity can be, um, thick. When it’s time for the Gauley River, all that humidity disappears like mist below Sweet’s Falls (that’s one of the Class Vs).
Then, the leaves start changing. They begin maybe the weekend after Gauley Season starts, which is always the weekend after Labor Day, and tend to hit their peak on Bridge Day Weekend, which is always the last or right after last weekend of Gauley Season. And if you’ve never seen the leaves turn in the Mountain State, all I can say is please please please please please come to see them. They’re that good.
But if there’s one thing about Gauley Season that’s better than anything else, it’s the people. Better than the river itself, even.
No, not really. But close. I love the people of Gauley Season. Everyone’s in a better mood, excited, super-friendly… like we’re all sharing a great secret or something.
The entrance to some family fun at the Burning Rock Outdoor Adventure Park.Cool shirts. Plus, they put on a great soccer camp
As a rental cabin owner guy, you get certain perks. This is a post about one of them.
Burning Rock Outdoor Adventure Park had invited The Opossum Creek Retreat Adventure Team ™ (that’s us) to test drive their Brand New Dual racing Zip line.
Having been a stranger in a strange land, I know it can make you do strange things. So I asked the coaches from our kid’s soccer camp, Challenger Sports (all from England) if they would like to peg the adrenaline meter with us on a zip line and they said “Yep we’re in!” And then they immediately said, “What’s a zip line?”
Thanks to Burning Rock’s hospitality they said yea, bring on the Brits too!
The Burning Rock zipline is always safety first.
There is something really great about taking people outside their comfort zone; when you do, it’s easier for everybody to just laugh out loud at themselves and at each other. Just another great thing about living in the mountains
Burning Rock has the fastest, longest zipline east of the Rockies, and I’ll say this about it: it feels like you’re flying.
View from top of Burningrock zip line over looking camp ground ATV track ready for burning rocks 2500 foot zip line.
Personally, I think it could be longer and faster. Hey, Woody (Duba, Burning Rock GM): I know you have a spot picked out. Go bigger next time, huh? (People say my sarcasm is endearing).
What else can you say? If you like speed, and thrills, and doing things you’ve never done before, and West Virginia, then this is for you. If you don’t like that stuff, you should probably stay home. Or maybe watch it on youtube.
What’s also cool about Burning Rock is the 8000-or-so acres and 100+ miles of West Virginia ATV trails. I’m not a huge ATV guy, but I like to ride every now and then, and I think it’s going to be a blast to take my kids.
In the past, we had sent guests down to the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System, which is a pretty cool place in its own right. But it was a fairly long drive to get there, and the system down there is actually several different trail systems, all connected together. Burning Rock is more of a one stop shop. Rentals, guides, gear… everything you need.
I’m definitely looking forward to what Opossum Creek Retreat guests have to say about it. Almost as much as I’m looking forward to going back myself.
Having a really cool, clean comfortable cabin to curl up with your clan is a must.
Okay, okay. This post is about the river, not the Cabins rentals. (Biased? Me biased?)
I have my PHD in rivertrip-ology. Really. I guided trips for a living/lifestyle for many years on many rivers in several countries. Rafting was very very good to me. I still occasionally take my family out for a New River Family rafting adventure (they’re still too young to drive or they would take themselves).
WE love taking first timers. This is how we like to go about a day on the river:
Best Family White Water Trip
First and foremost is safety. Gear is checked. The kids deliver the safety talk to newbies, and if there aren’t any new bees, they give it to each other and us. It’s a ritual that takes place before each trip. Commercial or private.
Then we’re off, or, y’know, on, depending on how you look at it. You shove off but are on the river, anyway.
I really believe that everyone should start out with a mellow float trip first. Relaxing into it, getting a feel for the way the raft moves on the current. Becoming comfortable with the vocabulary, the pace, the fun. Feel your paddle move the raft. The buck and the dip as you slip down a wave train into a rapid, the tug of an eddyline as you pull into shore for a break, eating in your lap while sitting on a rock, swimming (floating) in your lifejacket- that’s a PFD (personal floatation device) for you professionals out there, standing up in the raft and not worrying you’re going to fall out.
Family and freinds Rafting the New River
After a while you’ll feel comfortable enough to enjoy the views. All these things make it easier to enjoy the big stuff when you get there, if you ever get there. We rarely get there anymore. Not just because we have kids that are just getting to the point they are big enough to self rescue, but it’s less stressful and more fun on the easy stuff.
Quality time for Father and Son Swiming with Dad on the New River WV
Don’t get me wrong. You can still get in a whole lot of trouble on the easy stuff that’s why we do the safety talk every time.
The industry has taken its cue from the guests and shortened trips to maximize the thrill factor. For my money and yours, you should take the time to start slow and easy. Get warmed up with a day on the Upper New. Then, if the kids are excited and really ready, meaning you don’t have to talk them into it, go for the Lower New.
But take a day’s rest in between. Don’t over schedule your activities plan in some downtime.
Here is the itinerary I would book for my family knowing what I know now.
Pull into The Gorge area before dark and go to the bridge over look check out the NPS visitor center. Get a feel for the area our history and culture. It’s well worth it. Then, go check in at the cabin, cook something on the grill, and soak off the day in the hot tub.
Day 1: Book the earliest trip you can get on the Upper New. Enjoy the day with your family. Swim, laugh, and relax. Take in the views.
Day 2: Back on dry land. Take a hike go out to eat. Rest up with a book or movie in the cabin. If you’re feeling adventurous, go rappel with New River Mount Guides or canopy tour (there are several in the area).
Day 3: Dinner trip. It’s not much more money, so just do it. It’s not the food that makes it worthwhile; it’s the fact that you’re on the water after everyone else has taken off. You have the place to yourselves, mostly. Definitely the right time to be on the water.
Day 4: Head home. Sure, there’s a lot more great stuff to do that could keep you busy all week, but this is a blog about the raft trip. The best white water vacation ever. And know going in that that’s impossible to obtain even in a month. I had the best raft trip ever, and it took me years to accomplish it.
Have questions? Let me know in the comments. See you on the river!
Well, I never would have guessed I’d be living here in West Virginia.
Really. I was too cool (obviously!), and West Virginia is, well, ah, let’s see… how do I put this… it has some stigmas attached to it, and some of them are true.
Two decades ago, I wasn’t in the mountain cabin rental business. I was a guide. I was just stopping by West Virginia for Gauley Season, on my way to guide the Bio Bio in Chile. What happened was, see, I met this woman, and… well, that’s really another story.
But I’ll say this: after two years of showing her all the cool places someone might want to live like Chile, Costa Rica, Montana, Utah, and Arizona, she wanted to move back to the New River Gorge!
I was a carpenter/odd jobs guy to make ends meet in between raft guiding seasons. One day, there was an ad in the paper for a house and two acres for $12,000! It looked like we could fix it up and sell it, or rent it to raft guides. How can you go wrong for $12,000? Seriously!
My father-in-law, ever willing to see me work harder, gladly put up the money. Partway through the tear out (we took it down to the studs, pulled out the wiring, and gutted the plumbing too) we saw a brochure for Mill Creek Cabin rentals. I can remember thinking, if we furnish it and fix it up nice we could rent this old farm house to just about anyone!
After talking to the raft companies to see if there was any demand for those types of rentals, we decide to fix it up and rent it nightly to rafters visiting the New River. We knew right away we wanted to do more, and two years later, a house and 20 acres became available just around the corner. The land was laid out perfectly for my vision of providing a secluded little place for people to relax, surrounded by mother nature.
Now, I’m the first to admit that I was never a very good carpenter. But I was lucky to have some very good ones help me. The one who helped (?!) most was Whitey. Whitey is as close as I’ve ever seen to a “master” carpenter. He once said to another carpenter working on the job after seeing me up and down a ladder in the same spot for the better part of the day, “You know, I believe Geoff will keep %$#@ing it up until he gets it right”.
I was too much of a perfectionist, and nowhere near enough skill. Story of my life, right? Anyway, I was very happy to have Whitey, and Craig, and lots of lots of others make my ideas take shape. The first two cabins where designed on the proverbial bar napkin over a few beers, and went up with the help of great guys like them. They were ready to go at the beginning of our third year in the cabin rental biz.
That’s how things started. But I had no idea what was coming next.
Here in the New River Gorge, our rental cabins were green before green was cool.
Wouldn't it be cool to find out where this goes?
I’ve been called a tree huggin’ Hippy. I don’t know about the hippy part, but, yes, I’ve hugged a tree. Okay, many trees. I have also cut them down. It feels great to see it falling right where you had hoped, to hear the thunder as it hits the ground, the back ache from sawing it into lumber, the smell as it is drying in the kiln. The roar of the planer as the board begins to reveals its character and beauty, all the while hoping that our finished piece will do justice to that tree, and stand for as long as or longer than the tree would have if we had not interfered.
Let me explain. Back when we got started we didn’t know that we were building green or being eco-friendly or practicing the triple bottom line. We were just trying to be good neighbors, good stewards and good business people.
Giving back to your community, hiring locally, buying locally and using local materials all makes good sense. And for us, building the cabins to last and be efficient cost more up front. (Building a cabin with full grown trees just inches away from every side is much harder than using a bulldozer to clear a flat spot). If all it takes to make a difference is just a little extra effort, a little extra money, then we’ll continue to do that because it has served us very well so far.
I’ve wondered, though: can you be green while you are soaking in a hot tub, with the A/C on and the Game on the Satellite? Not totally. I’d like to put a pile of coal on our property to show how much coal it takes to make an average guest happy at Opossum Creek Retreat. It’s a big pile, I bet.
I guess the point is we’re trying to make a smaller foot print and maybe you’ll see that you can do it, to and still have all the comforts of home and then some. So, we’re glad to be a part of this “new movement” and will continue to be good neighbors, good stewards, and hope to make some good friends along the way.
Yes, I hug trees.
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