"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
~Hunter S. Thompson~
West Virginia is a place unlike any other. It has world class whitewater, great moonshine, deep, dark hollers to lose yourself in for days, but most of all, it has the best hillbillies in the world. I love hillbillies.............they don't give a fuck...........about anything. And they will tell you that if you have a problem with anything they say or do. Due to this, I relate to them very well, and have used my hillbilly social skills to have some good times while in West By God. But my first encounter with West Virginia hillbillies was my most educational, so lets go back and tell "One Great West By God Yakin' Story".......................as sad as it is to say, this is a completely true story.
"Gauleyfest 2012. I headed up to the hollers of the West By God mountains with a group of rivah guide bums to see what kind of trouble we could cause in one weekend............well, our conclusion is that we could cause quite a bit when fed the proper amount of moonshine. Our day started with a bright and sunny trip down the "Lower G". I love this section of rivah. The whitewater is big, easy, and fun, but the scenery is unparalleled to any other rivah in the Mid-Atlantic. The gorge walls begin to break down and loosen their grip that they hold on the rivah in the Upper G, forming towering rock walls, sprawling valleys between deep crick canyons, and Anstel Adams like landscapes that roll on for miles. After a solid ten miles of big water Class IV, the rivah flattens out and long stretches of mountain landscapes reveal themselves as a reward to all boaters...................
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| Pic featured in the 2014 Hyside Catalog |
............The best way to celebrate this reward is with a jar of West By God's finest. On this day, the jars were tipped back and the moonshine flowed strong as we floated deep through the beauty of The Gauley. We reached Swiss, our takeout, after a solid four hours on the rivah, and geared down for the shuttle. We chose our DD, got in the car, and headed up top to run the shuttle. The shuttle from Swiss to Mason's Branch is a solid 30 or 40 minute drive. Halfway through the ride, the pavement cuts away to the left and one of those all to common dirt roads drops away to the right. Exiting from pavement to gravel can be tricky when you are DDing a car full of moonshined up river guides. As we came over the hill and exited onto the gravel, a family of West Virginia boys were sitting on four wheelers on the right side of the road. We swerved quickly around them and kept on cruising down the West By God back road to Mason's Branch.
I was in the back seat downloading pics to a lap top and not paying attention to what was happening. After five minutes or so I looked up and realized we were flying through the forest on a gravel road at about forty miles an hour. My two fellow boaters in the front seat were talking about racing or something, and I looked behind us and realized there was a four wheeler chasing us. The driver was in a rather feisty mood, and for some reason was under the impression we were in a Dukes of Hazzard style back roads chase between Bo and Roscoe. They were now having fun with the situation, while I kept observing the developing scene.
I looked back again to study what the four wheelin' hillbillies were actually doing. The four wheeler was a two seater and there were two patrons along for the ride. In the drivers seat was a West By God good ole' boy, complete with a wife beater, Mountaineers baseball cap, and a big old lipper..................oh, and he looked really pissed off!! To his right was his beautiful bride, complete with missing teeth, a classic West Virginia muffin top, and some classy tats, possibly prison style. She looked pissed too. I decided to take action and try to clear up the scene..........................
Me: "Dude, they looked pissed."
Driver: "Naw man, it's cool. They want to race."
Me: "I don't think they want to race.............seriously, they look really pissed."
At this point I was studying the scene out the back window, still flying through the woods in the middle of no where. I watched the toothless girlfriend pull a white handkerchief out from her back and hand it to her meth'd out husband. When he took it I realized what it was as he put the handkerchief between his legs and under his seat.
Me: "Dude, that guy has a gun!"
Driver and Passenger: "..........................(silence. They were not really listening to me or believing me)
Me: "Seriously, that guy looks pissed off and has a gun."
About this time the four wheeler raced up to our back left as the road narrowed between a rock wall and a steep drop off. The driver had three choices..................run the four wheeler off the road into the wall, swerve off the drop and into the woods, or stop. We stopped......................in the middle of the West By God wilderness, being chased by a gun tottin' West Virginia Hillbilly, pissed as hell about something. This was not good.
"We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine." ~H.L. Mencken
The four wheeler pulled ahead of the truck, cut us off, and the good ole boy hopped out and started walking towards the car. At this point I could see what was about to happen but did not know what to do, so I just sat there and watched it play out. He walked straight up to the drivers window, pulled out the gun, and put it right up to the temple of the driver...................."Holy Shit! We are going to DIE!'. I didn't actually say this but it is what I was thinking. The dude had a rather crazy look in his eyes, he was breathing so hard he was growling, and sweat was pouring down his face, soaking his dip stained wife beater. Then light was shed on why this man was about to kill us..........
Hillbilly: "Boy, you just almost ran over my son."
Driver: "Sir, I am so sorry. I did not mean to upset you in any way." (Smart decision on what to say. After all, there is a gun to your head.)
Hillbilly: "I ought to kill you right here."
Then the hillbillies girlfriend went off the deep end like a ranting, angry, muffin topped accomplice always being interviewed on Cops, trying to pull the gun away from her husband, while at the same time bitchin' us out for speeding. (by the way I agree that they had a right to be angry. We were in the wrong............but a gun, c'mon. That's a little much.) Then more hillbillies pulled up on four wheelers..........about four or five of them. Wow, things just kept getting worse by the minute. The first dude looked just like the grandpa on Duck Dynasty. He pulled up and looked at me, stating,"I ought to cut you up in pieces and leave you in the woods."....................lovely. At this point I was scared shitless and simply trying to figure out how we were going to get ourselves out of this little pickle. That is when fellow boaters came to the rescue. During the ordeal other boaters were coming up the road from the takeout and had stopped, watching how things played out. Apparently they became tired of waiting, and decided to do something about the situation, yelling that they were calling the cops. This definitely got the hillbillies attention. Within a few seconds they were all back on their four wheelers. They took off, scattering about in four different directions, and then disappeared..............leaving the three of us alone, sitting in the car, in the middle of the woods, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
No one spoke. We just started driving again in silence. I kept looking up into the trees, worried that the hillbillies were about to attack with a second wave. I think we were all thinking the same thing at that point..................."we need to get to other people ASAP." We made our way down the mountain and to the put in at Mason's Branch. The entire experience was left echoing in our minds as we drove back to the takeout to tell the tale to our fellow paddlers.
The moral of the story is simple..................don't ever fuck with West By God hillbillies. After living in the sticks for a month now, and traveling to the gorges of West Virginia no man's land for half my life, I have learned that West Virginia hillbillies are the real deal, and they are not fond of boaters either. It is also important to remember that moonshine usually leads to nonsense and should only be consumed when you are not mobile or planning to be mobile within six to eight hours of consumption. Finally, if you are ever being chased by a four wheeler on a backwoods West Virginia road, whatever you do, don't ever stop.....................at least, that's my advice.
“When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.”
~Criss Jami, Venus in Arms~
See ya on the rivah.....................hopefully not being chased by toothless, gun totin', West Virginia hillbillies! PEACE
