Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Jack Wrenn, 12, goes over rapids on the New River. His family rented tubes from the New River Junction Campground.

The New River Junction tubing area is about one mile long and is open every day of the week.

Along with tubing, the New River Junction offers camping, fishing, canoeing and picnic areas. The area is especially fruitful for those fishing for smallmouth bass.

Driving along wooded, windy McCoy Road beyond Blacksburg, it seems you're in the middle of nowhere. Right about the time you start wondering if you're lost, the yellow sign for New River Junction appears.

Fleetwood Mac blares from the little shack's sound system this humid July day. A group stands at the shore of the river, lugging black inner tubes

"Have a blast," one woman says as the group begins inching its way down the sloped, sandy bank and sloshes into the shallow water.

Bob Marley plays on the stereo. The tubers are surrounded on all sides by lush green mountains that seem to touch the clouds. The only thing behind the mountains are more mountains.

The water is tepid and the river, this group learns, is low.

"You got to pick your butt up around here," one woman says from her tube, raising her hind end to avoid rocks jutting from the river bottom.

Some wade into the brown water, still dragging tubes alongside them. Others hop on and are soon far ahead of the pack.

They have a half-mile float ahead. A lazy summer day's journey marked at the end by rapids.

For 26 years, owner Dave Mondy has spent his summers here, running the tubing center, where those eager to cool off in the water line up for black tubes and orange life jackets. In addition to tubing, there's also camping. And the river, he knows, is a prime spot for smallmouth bass fishing. Not long ago, a guy from Charlottesville wrangled 70 in one day, he said.

Before Mondy opened the junction in 1982, folks were already taking advantage of the river's tubing, fishing and canoeing, but the result was less organized.

Back then, Mondy said, traffic coming and going from the site formed a bottleneck that would back up for a mile and created a situation where police and rescue vehicles had trouble getting through. Going into business added order to the mess when he started renting tubes and parking people's cars.

"It was something that needed to be done," he said.

Now, Saturdays are the busiest, as is the end of summer when students from nearby Radford University and Virginia Tech return for the year.

Even on this Tuesday, the river is full of life. Tubers float to the end, climb on shore and push a button that summons a bus to fetch them. Inside, tubes fill the middle aisle, Mardi Gras beads hang from a fan on the dash and drivers deliberately hit bumps in the road while transporting everyone back to the starting point, where they can ride the river all over again.

At float's end, the calm, shallow waters give way to rapids that rush over rocks. The sound dominates the air, and puddles of green algae and white foam pool at the base of boulders.

While some choose to anchor themselves and their coolers to a cluster of rocks, or use boulders as a jumping spot into the river, boys such as Jack Wrenn, 12, and his brothers Richard, 7, and Bobby, 10, ride the rapids with their tubes under their bellies.

They navigate the bumps without capsizing and float into the calm waters beyond. Then, they climb up the rocky bank to the road. Instead of pushing the button for the bus, they just walk upstream a bit, climb back down to where the rapids start and ride them all over again.

"When you're in the river, you're just laying there," explained Jack, whose family was vacationing from Northern Virginia at Fairy Stone State Park.

This time around, younger brother Bobby leads the way down the rapids. Jack's tube gets stuck on a rock, but with a push forward, he's soon following his brother again.

They float for a while in the calm waters after the rapids.

Then, they climb rocks leading to the road, walk upstream and plop their tubes back into the water.