The information on this page is no longer kept current. My new white-water website is
Living only a mile from the Dan River and a few miles from Kibler Valley, Virginia, I grew up floating and paddling from the Hydro Station to the other side of Claudville. At twelve I started paddling canoes down the valley with my dad and was there for the first annual Kibler Valley River Run in 1982. I competed in it many times. In 1985, at sixteen, I paddled a Boy Scout canoe with Neil Marion and placed first in the Junior tandem division. For many years after that, I would simply show up with a friend and borrow the first available canoe. I remember Mike Joyce and I trying to get a white-water canoe down the river when we didn't have a clue how to handle it. We probably spent more time out of the boat than we did in it. Mike and I also carved a path down the river in a big aluminum flat water canoe. You could probably see the sparks as it scraped its way through the rocks. Mike Wimbush and I also competed once in a borrowed boat. I then took a break from paddling for a few years and when I returned it was in a kayak. And now the last weekend in July is once again penciled in on my calendar as a weekend for paddling in Kibler Valley.
July 28, 2007
details, photos and a video from the 25th Annual Kibler Valley River Run can be found here
July 29, 2006Many details from the 24th Annual Kibler Valley River Run can be found here, along with many more photos.
July 30, 2005
more photos and details from the 23rd Annual Kibler Valley River Run can be found here.
July 31, 2004
22nd Annual Kibler Valley River Run
I stopped by Dan River Company's tent on the way out and picked up a brochure. Jeff and I would rent kayaks for the first time the following month.
July 26, 2003
21st Annual Kibler Valley River Run
July 24, 1993
11th Annual River Run
It looks like Don and dad might have crashed out at Basketball Falls in 93. Another year they completely folded a fiberglass canoe in the same falls. It was completely folded in half when it went in sideways.
1985
3rd Annual River Run
Neil Marion and I won the Junior Two Person Canoe division.