In today's fast-paced world, adventure vacations give us the rare opportunity to both relax and revitalize. After all, what better way to learn new skills than by playing and what better place to learn than Wild, Wonderful West Virginia and ACE Adventure Center? Our kayak courses are exciting, challenging and always a great time. Our goal is to share America's Best Whitewater with our students while we instruct and encourage each one to paddle safely and confidently.

Our Style... Learn it right
the first time!

Our Courses establish, then build upon, a solid foundation of must-have skills in a fun, friendly way. Each skill you learn will be grounded and reinforced by the skills learned previously. This progressive step-by-step approach facilitates the students' thorough and practical understanding of river skills, knowledge and leadership.

At ACE, our progressive building block method allows you to learn it right the first time, as we teach you control and precision. This way, your confidence and skills let you surf a glassy wave gracefully, ride a hole with control, and link rhythmic turns in complex and challenging rapids.

In contrast, the 'adrenaline rush' approach to kayaking too often finds beginners charging through rapids out of control, somehow surviving, then wanting a tougher, more dangerous ride. This method usually means having to unlearn a lot of bad habits.

We have found either approach to kayaking can be exciting, but ACE's skill building method from exceptional instructors unlock the secrets of safe, successful kayaking. We measure our success by the number of people who continue to enjoy kayaking year after year as a result of our courses.Visit the ACE Adventure Center and let our professional kayaking instructors teach you to kayak and learn a skill that you will enjoy for a lifetime.

Overview of Clinic Programs

All of our classical five day courses, Fundamentals, Intermediate, and Advanced, are designed in two day packages that link together with a Swiftwater Rescue Course to form a five day program that will leave you breathless. During those five days our instructors will give you the challenges and encour-agement to provide an experience that will last you a lifetime. These courses run Monday through Friday to provide you with the best value. The two-day blocks that make up each of the five-day courses can also be taken as weekend clinics. Our River Rescue course takes place on Wednesdays.

We also have Kayak Samplers that can be taken Monday through Friday and on weekends at a special price. These programs are designed to give you a taste of kayaking and can be combined with rafting, horseback riding, climbing or other trips to give you a wide variety of activities while visiting ACE.By popular demand, we have the Rapid Experience Programs. This one day clinic became so popular last year we have created a whole program devoted to the sit-on-top kayak.

This user-friendly boat allows students to push the envelope and get on the fast track to whitewater adventure. This boat also gives people who have claustrophobia issues the ability to try an individual boating experience because you sit on the boat rather than in the boat.Our Specialty Programs are a group of clinics to cover individual topics of interest to advanced kayakers. These topics include playboating, creek paddling, river rescue, guided trips and overnight packages.As always we still offer Custom Clinics for people who have unique scheduling demands or wish to design a personal program for special interests. For Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other youth or school organizations, we also have Custom Clinics For Youth Groups. The biggest advantage of a custom clinic is the small class size. You get to choose who will be in your class and what topics you want to focus on.

Course Availability & Pricing

All of our kayaking courses have preset dates. Please see the availability section under the course description or check the availability section on our Price Guide page.

All prices listed are on a per person basis unless otherwise noted and are subject to change without notice. As much as we try to update all prices on our web site as quickly as possible there may be times when a price difference between our pages and our reservations office may occur. Our reservationists will always have the latest updates.

These are some suggestions about the climate in West Virginia for your consideration in making your decision about when to book your kayaking clinic. We are located in the heart of whitewater country in the Heart of West Virginia and the weather can roll in fast and hard when it wants to, but these are some basic trends in weather and water. March is a hardcore time of the season. Expect cold weather and cold water. The bonus is that the water levels are typically high which usually

interests advanced kayakers. Having the proper gear such as a dry top, pogies, and a skullcap are crucial. Paddling in the extreme cold can be fun for advanced kayakers, but is very serious. The cold adds another subtle level of difficulty that is hard to measure.

April is another month that typically has high water and cold weather. Extreme rafting junkies start showing up at this time of the year to catch Big Water on the New River. There are also sometimes occasional glimpses of clear sunny weather but don't bank on it. As May rolls in the water levels are coming down a little but summer is just beginning to peek its head out.

June, July, and August are typically the best time for beginners. The combination of warmer weather and warmer water temperatures make learning to kayak a pleasure rather than survival. Let's face it, learning a water sport is much easier in warm weather than in the cold. It is really difficult to think and learn with an ice cream headache.