The Lower Gauley features some of the very best mystery arenas in the world. This is balanced by the fact that it has a lot of flatwater to paddle at the end of the trip.  Blasting Five Boat Hole at Koontz’ Flume is a must do for any serious squirt boater. It offers an intense but likable ride with plenty of opportunity for transitions. There are also super nice waves lower in the trip for super nice surfers.

Trash Compactor

This is a special spot at the way bottom right of Junkyard Rapid. It was named by Dale Adams around 1993 (?). It's against the river right shore and plunges deeply off the side of an small underwater rock. You come in with speed but coast your final charc (good technique anywhere). Come in very close to the rock- almost scraping it and dive steep and fast with a plunging charc while you wing down hard in a vertical mode.  You will soon gain support of the eddy which powers up the slabs ability to drive you deep. Good riders can easily go very deep for over 7 seconds. There is a bit of travel involved but it's not like you're roaming. You can also do powered up exits because the squeeze here is sooo dynamic. Timid or inexperienced boaters usually get lesser results here. Keep your charc clean and simple because this place is so powered up that it can torque your body if you are waffling around. Don't fight it-  find your way to the center of the earth here.  If you put too much into it- it will bite back and you might even end up getting dogged around or doing an ignoble roll in front of your friends.  So be careful- but enjoy! It's one of the best spots on the river.

Twisted Sister

This is the most famous and accommodating mystery spot in West Virginia.  Which isn't to say it's not fickle.  Even homeboys often sample the Sister for an hour before she yields the good stuff.  It is about 2 miles into the Lower Gauley near some play waves which are usually littered with plastic- above Upper Mash Rapid. It is a mere wrinkle at the way bottom left of the rapid. It features an underwater ledge- where you get your down force, a large supporting eddy- which maintains excellent downtime, and a couple noteworthy rocks- which it behooves you to work around. It is successfully worked with regular and backcut charcs.  Big downtime here is over 20 seconds and involves a lot of travel-  but that is the Schnelle Zone.  Most paddlers tap into 3-7 second drops with excellent sweet aesthetics. It was named by Eric Lindberg and Whitney Shields around 1990 and has remained a favored haunt of shadow riders since then. It was named that because they liked the name- not because of anything going down easy or juicy seams or anything like that. The regular charc usually yields the best downtime but is often hard to cypher out- especially for beginners here.  The trick is to leave the eddy consistently- about15-18 inches away from the upstream rock.   Travel with some speed across the approach currents hitting you from the right and generate some lateral speed which will feed you into the maw of the abyss. Look for the farthest right corner of the mini-wave there and approach that spot with your bow sunk about 1' but sitting up centered over your wing. The idea is to engage your hip fully and smoothly in the upstream slab which is plummeting quietly over the invisible ledge.  If you do it right you bow will clear over the ledge with only inches to spare- even though the ledge is about 15" under the surface and hard to see. Use a single sustained stroke to smooth and guide the impact with the slab.  Once you hit-

drop fast with a smooth wingdown and turn back sharply into the eddy. This is not a good time to travel. Once you've  re-established contact with the eddy you can keep spinning at a nice pace and prolong your downtime. There are special concerns about traveling too far here also- which I will mention later. Another good option is to drop fast to about 4' deep and then do a full loop (barrel roll) on your way back to the surface. This is where loops were first developed by Jim Snyder in the fall of 1996.  You can also wait until you are nearly breaking the surface and do a "Retarded Loop" or wait until your head breaks the surface and do a "Light Loop". You can also do stunning and awesome mobiusequences here to really show your stuff- although homeboys almost never do because they are saving their energy and feet for downtime.  The backcut charc is also very effective here. Approach the same way but a bit more downstream like you are trying to catch a surf on the mini-wave. Then deeply engage your bow in the furthest right tiniest corner of the mini-wave and use a powerful sustained up-directed backstroke on the right to jam your left hip into the slab. You don't need to wingdown much here because you are going down big time no matter what if you've done the approach right.  The best thing to do next is to stall or use some magic force to sustain spins against the whirlpool energies.  No one knows exactly how this works- but it sure does here!  It's also fun and effective to stop your spin and reverse it.  The one thing it's not a good idea to do is to travel fast backwards along the ledge in this mode.  There are 2 underwater rocks of concern here.  Both are about 4.5' deep and a ways away from the drop zone but still quite accessible.  They are called the Pinning Rock and the Rock That Waits.  The Pinning Rock is out in the center of the river and is usually encountered by mystery riders traveling backwards along the ledge from a backcut approach. You will get there in about 3 seconds from a very deep drop and will have a half second of turbulence to warn you that a hard crash is imminent.  This is your one chance to hit the up button. Often people who drop deep and travel here see shadows of neighboring rocks pass by above them on their way. If you hit the rock-  which has been done too often- quickly turn vertical and try to splat your way off the face.  People who impact this rock often get deep scars on their hulls and report that the hull crushed on them- a very bad sign. But no one has ever been pinned seriously and most people just live by the discipline of not roaming into the neighborhood. The Rock That Waits gets a lot of visitors.  It is down in the eddy- just on the eddy side of the eddy line about 25' downstream of the drop zone. It takes a deep drop and about 3.5 turns to find yourself parked there. You have to stay deep the whole way to really visit. When Jeff Schnelle gets his big downtime here he has to navigate past this rock underwater.  I'm not sure it's well marked at all, but there is distinct turbulence for a full second before you get there.  A good way to guarantee that you will never park on the rock is to keep your boat only 4' deep in this area. This way you will pass over the rock for sure. Five feet deep is asking for it though- so be precise.  It helps to open your eyes and keep a reading on the surface so you know how deep you are if you venture down that way.  There have been a large number of pins and whacks on this rock and no one has been crushed badly on it- although Knuckle Down Guthrie got his moniker by mauling his innocent hand between the rock and his boat once. It's pretty benign though and there's a chance that Dan's choice of coffee had something to do with the incident.  The beauty of this spot is that it is easy on the body and yields very consistent good results for practiced players here.  It is a high point of the year for mystery artists and there are sublime gatherings which occur in the fall season. It's a classic Mecca that should be on every squirt boaters list of places to visit.