Floating Down the Shenandoah River

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My lovely bride and I took a trip out past Luray Virginia on Saturday morning for a camping trip. We stayed at the Shenandoah Outfitter’s campground and were fortunate enough to get there with enough time to take a great canoe trip for three miles down the Shenandoah River.

The weather started out with rain, and the whole trip was looking iffy all the way down to Luray. But as noon neared, the clouds were burning off and we arrived at the campgrounds in a pleasant sunlight. As we are not avid outdoorsmen, we chose to go on the shorter of the river trips, and it turned out that it was just the right amount of time on the river- about two hours or so.

I have never canoed on a mountain river. I grew up in Southern Virginia, so all of the rivers I was used to are murky brown, stinky swamp mud bottoms, and full of jellyfish. But I knew how to use a kayak and a canoe. What surprised me about the Shenandoah was the clarity of the water and the fact that the river bottom is almost solid rock everywhere. You can easily see the fish swimming around, and wildlife was plentiful.

We encountered a few rapids. Those didnt always go well. We should have paid closer attention to the maps that the canoe rental place provides. I’m pretty sure it shows you the best spots to go over the rapids. Two or three times we got stuck on some shallows in the rapids and had to brute force our canoe downstream. Luckily the water was low and the rapids pretty mild. No one got wet. Im just glad that those canoes are fiberglass and flexible. Had they been made out of wood we’d have sunk.

I think the next time we go we will get kayaks.