New River Kayaking adventures

Father's day weekend we grabbed our kayaks and headed out to the New River in Radford.  There are many places to access the river at Bisset park.  WE only took one vehicle, but my husband took his bike. So we scouted out a good ending location a few miles down the river, and he chained his bike up there. So that when we finished kayaking, he could ride back and get the truck. 

The New River is part of the Ohio River watershed, is about 360 miles long. The river flows through the U.S. states of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia before joining with the Gauley River to form the Kanawha River at the town of Gauley Bridge, WV.  Despite its name, the New River is one of the five oldest rivers in the world geologically.  Often thought to be the second oldest in the world, with the Nile being the oldest. Unlike most other major rivers the New River flows north.

We recently purchased 3 kayaks. 2 singles and a double. My boy and i paddled in the singles and my husband and daughter used the double. Much of the New river that we floated down was extremely shallow. So shallow that we could reach right over and pick up the shells and rocks on the river bottom.

There are parts that are quite deep, so we all had our life vests on. The rivers flows slowly, so it was a nice relaxing float. i believe we went about 3 miles, and it took us close to 2.5 hours. 

Hard to see in the photo, but this tree was filled with huge water birds. Possibly, Cormorants. We also saw a turtle, little fish and either muskrats or river otters swimming. They were brown and furry and ducked under the water when we went passed, so i have no idea what they were just some sort of river critters. 

When we got to our end spot on the river, we stayed in the kayaks while kenan went back to get the truck.  i took over the double, because it's a little harder to steer and let my girl try out the single.  It was really shallow in this area, maybe 6"-8" deep.  There was an island in the center of the river here, with nesting killdeer.  We enjoyed watching them run along the edge of the island and yell at us for being so close. 

  

We usually hike on the weekends, so kayaking is a new adventure.  We have so many places around us to kayak.  Besides the New River, there is the Little River in Floyd and Big Reed Island, which is not too far down the road. We are excited to explore these areas this summer and spend as much time outside as possible. You can expect to see more kayaking posts in the future! #getoutside