The Herald-Dispatch

Eric Lunsford got off work at midnight, hopped in his car in Cleveland and drove 300 or so miles straight through the dawn.

Destination: Gauley River.

Wiggled into a wetsuit shortly before 8 a.m., Lunsford, whose car had a slight drinking problem (three quarts of oil on the way down), couldn't have been happier just to be there. He was ready to ride the nearly 100 named rapids that buck rafters and kayakers around for about 26 miles.

"Down here, I just totally take off all of the masks and just be me," said the 33-year-old who was getting ready to join a group of strangers for a ride on the Upper Gauley, riverside camping and then a Lower Gauley ride on day two.

Halfway down the river at a lunch break, a sopping wet Lunsford was still singing the praises of the Gauley after taking on the 14-foot drop known as Sweet's Falls, and after getting knocked out of the boat at "Lost Paddle" rapids and swimming the frothing whitewater of "Tumble Home."

"I think you could compare it to the thrill of skydiving, which lasts about two minutes," Lunsford said. "This lasts about two days. It's scary, it's thrilling, it hammers you -- and then you want to do it again."

While many of the fall Gauley season rafters are like Lunsford, twenty and thirtysomething Red Bull-chugging guys, the world-class river draws in a good mix of folks looking for an unforgettable adventure.

Soaking in the serenity of the remote Gauley River Gorge after a morning of adrenaline-cranking rapids, Michael Spicer, a fiftysomething who builds custom yachts on the East Coast, said the trip has become a yearly ritual.

Spicer, who ran the New River the day before, said this is the third year he has run the Gauley with his wife, Gini, and her fellow critical care nurses at the Annie Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md.

"This makes you feel alive," Spicer said. "It brings you closer to the real elements of life. That's why we are here, I think."

The 18 or so whitewater rafting companies that run the Gauley offer a wide range of trips. Some trips are taken in small adventurous rafts called "gung-ho" boats, and some trips are in bigger more stable rafts for newcomers.

"It seems like half the population overestimates their abilities, and the other half thinks the Gauley is just too big and scary," said Jerry Cook, one of the owners of ACE Adventure Center of Oak Hill. "That's why we have so many different types of trips."

While many beginners start out on the Upper or Lower New, beginners can also tackle the Lower Gauley, a 12-mile-stretch of whitewater that is often run as a warm-up for the Upper Gauley.

Minimum age to run the Lower Gauley is usually 12 to 14 years old, while 16 is the minimum age for rafters going on the Upper Gauley.

Cook said rafting is unique in that it's one of the few sports that folks of all levels can enjoy together, as evidenced by a recent Upper Gauley trip that included Gauley veteran Joe Shrewsbery, who has been guiding on the river since 1970, along with Gauley newbies such as Andrew Holcomb, 16, of Lexington, thirtysomething heavy metal singer Mike Compton of Panama City, Fla., and others.

"If someone skis well and you don't, or if you play tennis with your mom, somebody is not going to have a good time," Cook said. "Rafting is something that we can take someone who has never been and someone who is really experienced and take them on the same trip and have a good time. That is a pretty unique activity."

Like the other outfitters, ACE has taken just about everybody down the river, including grannies with hairnets down the Upper New.

Cook said he'd rather have a boat of older folks who paddle together than a testosterone-filled boat of paddle-clappers that can't get it together.

"Give me the same thing every time, and I can adapt," Cook said. "The biggest key is consistency."

And the biggest key to consistency is watching the rafter in front of you, says first-time rafter Katie Brooks, a nurse from Barbourville, Ky.