I'm pretty sure the blue Creature-Craft that appears @2:30, is a Handi-Raft Modification, being paddled by its inventor, Eric Thompson. E.T. has a T-8 level spinal cord injury. Yes, he's paddling the Upper Gauley, solo, and he is paralyzed from about the sternum on down. Very big, very brassy, his are!
Holy shit. I had a spinal cord injury c2/3 and damage at t5. I would never I’m my life would I even try anything like this. Fuck that. AND I HAVE USE OF MY LEGS. was paralysed from the neck down initially. Being only able to blink. Thank you for this piece of info. Really appreciate it.
This is the first that I’ve ever seen these Creature Crafts before. Interesting design theory to keep them from flipping; but, doesn’t the very design greatly reduce ones visibility, since there is a massively thick inflated tube directly in the middle of ones line of sight?
Looks that way. But visibility probably isn't that important in this type of craft. In pretty much all the videos I have seen of them, you are just along for the ride. No amount of paddling seems to make any difference in the upper-class rapids that these float through.
That guy that jumped at 2:48 to be able to flip the Creature Craft. Is he alive? There’s no way he’s able to surface from those current. Looks like a whirlpool tbh After looking closely, the second guy who jumped to flip it back over seems to be hanging onto the raft. But the first guy who jumped on at 2:40 and flipped it, definitely did not resurface.
They're fine. People were jumping into the water left and right and no one seemed concerned, leads me to believe its not a huge deal. you can see an eddy just beyond the rapids and people swimming to it
Its the Gauley Fest! It's held every year in September, and is a couple of days of camping out in a local park and hitting the Gauley and/or New River by day, and getting absolutely hammered and doing keg stands until you collapse and destroy vender stands by night. Lmfao at least thats what I experienced in 2019 which was my first year getting out there. It was at a local Veterans Memorial Park with live music and bands playing N shit, with everyone camping out with the Jackson Kayak RV as a sort of festival center point. My experience was limited because I had just started kayaking and wasn't nearly good enough to paddle any of the rivers in the area, so I helped out a friend who was running a vendor booth. My last memory of the Gauley fest was calling it a night around 5 in the morning right after someone had attempted to do a keg stand in front of the booth and fallen, crashing into the stand and taking the table and a few people with them. Good time to call it a night!
