Gauley Bridge, WV

This is the little town where I grew up.  I actually didn't live in town but on up the Gauley River about 3 miles in a wide spot in the road called Alta, WV.  We did everything in Gauley though, school, church, friends, groceries, doctor, pharmacy, clothes, haircuts, tv repair and on and on.  It was a pretty neat town when I was a kid and probably even more so when my mom and grandmother were growing up there.

The New River and the Gauley River both end right where the bright lights are and they form the Kanawha River.

Molly and I had gone rock climbing this afternoon and we were on our way home and we stopped at the end of the "boulevard" to see if the Milky Way was visible over Gauley.  It was visible, but it was almost directly overhead and not over the town.  I went ahead and made a few photos anyway, just for s & g's.  This was also the first time I had used my Fuji xe-2 for any night sky photography.  I think it did ok.

Turbulence and Peace

Winter Star Trails

My first attempt at photographing star trails.  This photo is made from 118, 30 second exposures at f/4 and ISO 1600.  The straight lines are from planes passing by during the exposures.

Weekend Photos

The picture at the cemetery is from Friday evening.  We were headed to Appalachian Power Park to watch the Power play the Savannah Sand Gnats when a giant thunderstorm caused the game to be cancelled, so we went up to the cemetery and walked around in the rain for a while.

The other photo is the Gauley river just below the Summersville Dam.  We had been up there Saturday for another family reunion and we always like to go down by the river and mess around before we go home.

Granville Blevins And The Gals

A couple of shots from last month that I liked but forgot to post.

Saturday Snow

The Gauley river and a farm near Carnifex Ferry Battleground.

Gauley River at Peter's Junction

Two more from last Saturday.

Gauley River, Saturday Afternoon

Kim had a big sewing project going today, so Molly and I took off and went up to the Gauley to watch some rafters and kayakers playin' on the river.  It's Gauley season, so the river is running high because of the releases from Summersville Dam.  We had a nice afternoon just hiking and messin' around, and on the way home we stopped at Frank's Pizza in Montgomery for some calzones.

Natural Beauty

We went to a family reunion today at Carnifex Ferry Battleground near Summersville Lake and the Gauley River.  After the reunion we always go down by the river to mess around a little.  This time we went down to the river below the dam.  Just a little downstream from where whitewater rafts put in for Gauley season.  There was no whitewater today though.  You could easily walk across the river and not go above your knees.

Like the post title says, "natural beauty".  The top two pictures need no explanation, but I'll give you a little background on the bottom one.  Photo nerd alert!  I made it with the Canon 24-105 mm zoom at 24 mm and f/8, a 75 second exposure time, a 10 stop neutral density filter and a circular polarizer filter.  There was a pretty good breeze blowing, so if you look close you can see that a lot of the trees are blurry too, like the water.  You can also see some blurring of the clouds from them moving across the sky during the exposure.  That's all!

Gauley River

We took a short trip up to the Gauley river yesterday to hike and play in the water.  We stopped at Smithers and picked up one of our cousins so she could go with us.

It's funny how that sometimes when something happens that's aggravating at first, then once you think about it it's not aggravating at all.

Kim was laying out on a rock and I asked her to hold my knife while I got in the water and swam a bit.  After we had hiked back to the truck and were getting ready leave, I said "Hey Kim, wheres my knife?"  Doh!  It was still on the rock in the river.  That was the aggravating part.

Here's the good part.  While we were hiking out Molly wanted to run but I didn't want to leave Kim and Brooke, so when we discovered my knife was still at the river Molly and I got to run back and get it.   I figured it was just a little less than a mile to where my knife was, so we made it a race against the clock.  We ran across an old railroad bridge that the NPS has converted to a pedestrian bridge, then up the railroad and across another bridge, then down a trail to the river.  We made it there and back in 19 minutes.  It was a fun run through some pretty woods.

For photo nerds, the picture of the river was taken with the Canon 17-40 mm lens with a 10 stop neutral density filter and a circular polarizing filter.  The exposure time was 75 seconds at f/8.  You can't get exposure times that long in the afternoon without the black glass of the neutral density filter.

Summersville Dam

Gauley River

Here's a few more from our hiking trip Monday.  There was a tiny bit of snow and ice left form a small snowfall we had on Friday.

The tunnel is about 3/4 of a mile long and even though we had a light with us we walked through the first time without using it.  That was cool.  On our way back we used it a little bit to look around in the tunnel.

"Winter" Kayakers

I put winter in quotations because we haven't had very much winter at all this year.  Last year and the year before were like the winters in WV should be (lots of snow and cold).  I guess we're due for a mild winter.

We were all off today so we thought we'd take advantage of the good weather and go on a short road trip.  Luckily we live only about an hour and a half from two of the prettiest rivers anywhere (IMO).

These kayakers are on the lower Gauley River where Peters Creek flows into it.  Click here to see a map of the rapids on the Gauley.

We were on an old railroad bridge that the National Park Service has converted to a pedestrian bridge.  It's not easy to get to but it's pretty cool once you get there.

Laurel Creek

Near the Gauley River in Fayette county WV.

Gauley River

A nice riffle in the river, but come the 9th of September it's gonna look kinda like this, check it out.  I'm pretty sure it's between Wood's Ferry rapid and Koontz Flume rapid but I don't know the name or if it even has one.