September 7, 1996 – The vestiges of a hurricane came through West Virginia during Gauley season, so we headed out to run the Fruit Basket starting with the Cranberry.
Level was 5.1 feet on 9/7/1996. This is a fun run, not too hard or dangerous.
Don Kinser & Milt Aitken in the manly open canoes.
Ted Newton & Mike (from PA) in the buttboats.
Here’s Don’s logbook entry for this trip:
Today was the third day of our WVA trip and a great day on the river. The rain stopped about 1 AM this morning and the day dawn clear and warm and DRY! Beautiful.The Meadow came up to 2300 cfs over night and we headed over the Cranberry assuming it would be full. The Cranberry was much fuller than our trip last April and was a lot of fun. The gauge appeared washed out at the bottom and we had to use a stick to estimate the level from the bottom of the gauge that remained. We estimated 5.1 feet (down to 4.9 when we passed the gauge in our boats). There were a few other boaters on the river. We grouped up with our neighbors at Battle Run: Ted Newton and his friend Mike from Lehigh PA. They also drove and we set shuttle with them. A shuttle on the Cranberry would not have been a problem but we could not have also made the N. Fork of the Cherry that afternoon without a shuttle. We put in at the same spot as our April trip and we took out all the way down below the FS 76 bridge at Woodbine recreation area. There is a sign on a cable across the river at the take out. We played alot and did lots of ferries and surfs. I pinned my boat attempting an attainment ferry. Milt set up right above and quickly threw a rope. I was stable and stowed my paddle and carabinered the rope to the front thwart. I pulled myself up the rope to Milt and we both pulled the canoe off the rock. The rescue went quite smooth and we were back on our way. The Woodbine recreation area was very nice. This is a good spot to camp. After we got off this one we headed to the North Fork of the Cherry for another fun run.
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