30 miles of Ocoee
| River: | Ocoee |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 05/03/2014 |
While I planned this trip months in advance, recent rain in the Triangle area caused a run of cancellations, and in the end it was just me, driving to Ducktown from NC, and Mark Kieran, driving up from FL.
After a lousy start leaving the house (mostly looking for my lost bicycle lock), I still managed an earlier than usual start leaving town around 4:30. Mark had left at about the same time, 12 hours earlier, and spend Friday evening playing in Hell Hole.
Mark and I camped together at Thunder Rock (my preferred Ocoee camping experience). Friday evening was ~ 35 degrees, so we took a late start to get on the river. As we set shuttle I found my lock, still wrapped around the ramp at the put-in from when I was last there in October! Solving the question of how we would lock up the boats!
The rest of the weekend was carnage-free, and we spend our time wandering downstream, and shuttling back up. I took the time to wander left, right, and center through each rapid just to remind myself of where everything was. Stuart caught up with us Sat. evening, and we added him to our uneventful Sunday.
I can confirm the flume is out, just downstream of Broken Nose. There’s about a 30′ section of it missing, and it looks like it will be out for a while. Someone local said August. I was nowhere in the area at the time of the landslide, just in case you were wondering.
No dogs were rescued in the course of this adventure.