Talluah and Green in the same day!

Well I made the drive up from FL again for another great weekend of boating. I had not paddled for a while, and was definitively rusty. On sat, I paddled the Talluah for the first time! Wow what a fun river, although accessing it is no fun at all. Over 500 steps down into the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi with a 50 pound creekboat on your shoulder is no fun. But its worth it! Every rapid on that river is fun! And with a 7-5pm release on the green that day, me and Dave were the first on the Talluah, and the last on the Narrows! Incredible. Then we hit up the Talluah again the next day for some higher water action. Ran Oceana both days. What a fun rapid. The video below is of my first run ever of Oceana on sat. I have head cam footage as well as footage from the river left bank that Dave was nice enough to take. Also got some footage of Dave showing me the line in style. I'm back in FL for less then 2 weeks and then ill head up to NY for May and most of June. Hope to do some paddling up there if the rivers are still flowing.


Here is my first ever run of Oceana. When I ran it on Sunday, I did not flip at the bottom. Unfortunately I did not get any footage of that run.




Here is the Head cam footage. I did not edit out all the prep time before I dropped in. Just fast forward.



Here is Dave showing me how its done.

peace
Toby

Spring has sprung in the Southeast

With the weather warming and the dams releasing, the last few days have been good to me as far as boating goes. Last weekend was the first Tallulah release of the year, and my first time running the gorge. We put on Saturday around 10:30 and had a great run. The run is pretty short form the putin to the lake, but there are some really fun rapids along the way. Oceana was big and fast, and the hole at Bridal Veil is big and scary looking. We paddled across the lake, ran shuttle and got a second run in at a pretty good pace. Sunday we woke up to sore legs and 700 cfs. We put on a little later, and went a good bit slower so we only got one lap in but the extra water made it extra fun. Here's a few pics.

Dropping into the middle line on Oceana

Out at the bottom

Mason staring down the Thing

A few days later I made it back up to the Green for the first time this year. The weather was great and the level was a nice 8 1/2". For the first mile or so we boogied down at a good pace until we got to Gorilla. I've really been itching to run Gorilla so when we got there I hopped out, took a look at the Notch and decided to give it a go. I got in my boat, dropped over the right side of Pencil Sharpener, and ferried across into the eddy. I took a moment to get my head right, then peeled out and charged at the Notch. I came through and didn't think I would make the eddy so a took a few strokes and there I was, boofing off the pad. Upon landing in the flume and hitting speed trap I flipped. I rolled up and realized my boat was underwater, my skirt had imploded! Longer story short, I swam Scream Machine and it took a while to get back in my boat which also ran Powerslide without me. Anyways, here are the photos.

You can tell the skirt has imploded here, half the boat is underwater as I'm about to roll.

Thats it for now, more paddling to come this weekend so look for another post in about a week.

Peace,

David

Wrestling the Bear

So far this year I've been paddling a good bit, and really building some confidence on the river. I've mostly been paddling familiar runs though so I haven't had a real challenge in a while. My opportunity for a challenge presented itself Monday night with a phone call from Jeff. Lots of rain was coming and the original plan was for West Prong. I met Jeff in the morning and after checking the rain gauges we decided to head to Bear Creek. Just listening to Jeff describe the run on the ride over gave me butterflies. As we got to the put in there was a crew there gearing up, and the gauge was at 8.5". We put on and before too long the gradient picked up and the walls closed in. For the first mile or so I just followed Jeff. Surrealistic Pillow was a mandatory portage, but other than that I ran everything and scouted Fishbowl, Stairway, and Big Bang. Running Stairway to Heaven has to be the most fun I've ever had in a kayak and dwarfs anything else I've run to date. Big Bang is the most sketchy drop I've run, with a very tight landing between rocks. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, I was only out of my boat a few times while scouting. As we got to the takeout I was pretty happy about a hard day of boating and clean lines. After a bit of discussion on the ride back Jeff offered to take me down the Raven Fork. I am more excited about paddling now than ever, especially at the possibility of getting on the Raven Fork within my first year of boating. I started in the middle of March 07 and I can't think of a better place to kick off my second season of whitewater.



On the way home I stopped by Dick's Creek, apparently that area got 4"-5" of rain. This is what I found.

The Chestatee gauge peaked at just over 3000cfs. I did a couple quick laps on the roadside falls section and decided to call it a day. Anyways I'm outta here, keeping my fingers crossed for Raven Fork.

-David

First time on the Chattooga

Today I took my long overdue first trip down section IV of the Chattooga. After reading all the hype about this river I was pretty excited. What fails to appear in every trip report I've ever read about the Chattooga is the amount of flatwater and how far apart the rapids are. It was pretty slow going until we got to Five Falls. However, what the section lacks in continuous whitewater is more than made up for in how beautiful the run is. The scenery is really cool and there is plenty of oppourtunity to check it out as you float through the shoals and flats. Five Falls on the other hand did not dissapoint. Although not too difficult it was pretty fun, and with undercuts and seives all over I can see where the hype comes from. The lake paddle out was definitely the least fun part of the day but the run is well worth it. I only got the camera out at Soc Em Dog, so here's a few photos.

Overall it's a pretty sweet run. The level was about 1.6, but I think I'll wait for higher water before I take my second run. Thats all for now, later.

-David

High water on the Yellow

Over the last couple days Georgia got dumped on pretty good from several waves of rain. The result, high water in metro Atlanta. After seeing a post on BoaterTalk a few days ago about the Yellow River, and seeing the gauge on AW at 1600cfs I decided to go check it out. I met up with Alex (posted on BT) and we headed down to the river. It was my first time there, but Alex said the water was higher than he'd ever seen it. It sure looked high (and brown) to me. We did a little scouting, as there were some pretty big holes to contend with, and put on. We didn't do the complete section, but from Annistown Falls down. Here's the pics.

Annistown Falls

Some pushy water under the bridge

Stay right!

Alex coming past the bridge

Alex punching through at the bottom

The next shot shows the bottom hole, it would almost definitely feed you right into the massive strainer if you swam out of it.

After Annistown and past the bridge there was some class II-III boogey with pretty nice waves and holes that made me wish I had my playboat. In fact I think I'll load it up and head back tomorrow. This also makes me want to explore the metro ATL area a little more. The only thing that would turn me away is the water quality, but its closer than TN or NC. Anyways, I'm tired.

Later,

-David