Photo Provided by Justin Ebeling The Creek Yakkers, a local kayaking group that navigates creeks around the Ohio Valley, has grown to more than 1,600 members.

WHEELING — It started out years ago as a few buddies getting together to kayak local creeks. It has grown into a group of more than 1,600 aficionados of the sport who love taking to the creeks together.

The Creek Yakkers are part of a growing sport, whose participants can be seen on local waters nearly every weekend.

It was a quiet start, said Justin Ebeling, who created the group’s website and Facebook pages. There were a half-dozen paddlers who went on the first trip in 2010. Yet they’d see other folks paddling away and wanted to band together.

“We’d see other kayakers out, but didn’t know who they were,” Ebeling said. “We thought it would be nice to meet some other kayakers, so we could plan trips together and things like that.”

Since then, the group has blossomed, especially in the last five years, to more than 1,600 members … so many, that some might meet each other for the first time on the water.

“Every time I would go kayaking for the first several years, I’d pass out stickers … that you could stick on your kayak or stick on your car,” he said. “And then when I started approaching people asking if they wanted to join, they were already members. And people started asking me if I wanted to join.”

The group will paddle along Wheeling Creek, Fish Creek and Buffalo Creek in West Virginia, and will travel down Captina Creek near Powhatan Point, Ohio. If the water is safe and it’s flowing, Ebeling said, they’ll run it.

With as big as the group has gotten, and in trying to stay safe in the time of COVID-19, there aren’t many official meet-ups, Ebeling said. Yet nearly every weekend, if the creek is at least 2½ feet and not so deep that it’s dangerous, there will be a group out on the water.

Kayaking is a COVID-era exercise that works, Ebeling said. Sitting in a kayak, paddlers already are a safe distance from each other. The only complications come when kayakers have to drop off a car at the end of a run to get back to the original site, yet they always stayed safe when they were in cars together.

Ebeling thinks the popularity of kayaking around Wheeling grew during the pandemic, as people wanted to get outdoors after being cooped up for so long isolating.

The group, Ebeling said, promotes safe and respectful fun on the water. It highlights kayak safety and being mindful of the property owners and fishermen they may pass on their way down the creeks.

One of the best parts of the sport is that it’s so accessible, Ebeling said.

“It’s a really good low-impact exercise that people of any age can do,” he said. “Some of my friends have children as young as 6 who can paddle by themselves. We have members in their 80s that paddle with us.

“You really don’t feel like you’re exercising until you get off the water — and then your muscles hurt — because you’re having so much fun out in the sun, with nature all around and great friends telling stories.”

For those who want to get started kayaking, Ebeling said that, fortunately, the learning curve isn’t very steep. The biggest difficulty is getting into the boat. Beginners should find people who know the local waterways, which ones are safe and if there are any obstacles along the way.

Ebeling also advises that beginners rent their kayaks before buying. That way they can figure out if the kayak is the right size and whether it wears out fast.

“Borrow a friend’s boat,” he said. “A lot of people will let you borrow their boat anytime.”

The Creek Yakkers website at creekyakkers.com is currently under maintenance, but the group has both a public Facebook page and private Facebook group that interested people can join.