“A Traveler of Rivers”

A Traveler of Rivers

a Carolina Paddler Profile  

by Alton Chewning

A young man with an unfulfilled interest in paddling is glancing through a magazine.  The magazine covers outdoor activities in North Carolina, like hunting, fishing, golfing, and boating.  In the classified section, he sees an ad for something called the Carolina Canoe Club.  Intrigued, he sends money to the listed address to pay for a membership in the club.  Could be fun.

The man receives a package in the mail.  Opening it, he pulls out a copy of Paddler, the newsletter of the Carolina Canoe Club.  He thumbs through it and sees a schedule of trips.  An upcoming one catches his eye, Chattooga, Section III, May 26, 1973. He signs up and for experience level, he pauses, and then checks the Intermediate box.  He considers for a moment.  Recently our subject, with wife and young son, had a night at the movies.  The film?  “Deliverance,” the classic southern story of a novice trip gone bad.  Most of the river action in the film had been staged on the Chattooga.  Our fellow had liked the film very much and with this movie under his belt, he briefly considers changing his skill level to Intermediate Plus.

The coordinator of the trip was a founder of the CCC, Steve Erikson, a gifted paddler and trip leader.  What our hero doesn’t know until much later is Steve is one of hard charging trio, “The Hickory Wild Bunch.”  Two brothers Erikson (Dale, Steve and Tom) and a cousin, Tom, were all known for their skill, thirstiness and red canoes with Budweiser emblazoned on the hulls.  They were inclined to get a bellyful occasionally and the besotted trio could indeed be a wild bunch.

But not on this occasion.  Our hero wasn’t the only new paddler on the trip.  When heavy rain made the Chattooga a bit unrealistic for this group, Steve decided to switch to the Chauga, a nearby and somewhat tamer avenue.  Some ledges, some sneaks.  The group managed well enough, some tips and swims but no major casualties.  Howard Du Bose, an experienced boater and instructor, had a swim at a rapid called, “Can Opener,” a site marked by boat pieces scattered on the rock.  Our new guy did some sneaks and was forced to grab his gunnels a few times and hold on, but the canoe stayed upright, his dignity mostly dry and intact.  The trip was winding down and Tom Erikson, who had a swim of his own this day, sidles over to the new guy, who was bringing up the rear.  “I see you’re switching sides with your paddle.  Do you know the J-Stroke?”   Our rapid learner confidently says, “Yeah, but it doesn’t work for me.”  Tom stares, shrugs, and paddles away.  Our hero, Paul Ferguson, has made an impression.

*If you would like to read the trip report of this day, it is included at the end of this article.

By this point Paul had already made an impression on his young family.  “Deliverance” had established canoeing as good, clean fun.  Paul had purchased his first canoe in 1971, a 15-foot aluminum Grumman with a shoe keel. Next, he convinced his wife and son to go paddling with him.  The Neuse seemed a good starting point and to qualm any fears they may have entertained, Paul gave a quick demonstration of the stability of his craft and the boating technique he possessed.  He glided into a small pool, crossed it blithely and ran onto the opposite bank, tipping over.   David, his six-year-old son, was not impressed and refused to get into the canoe.  Paul cajoled and ordered and finally bribed David to embark. As David recalled it was enjoyable and he made some folding money.

Sometime later, Paul happened to run into Tom Erikson again.  Tom said, “Hey Paul, it has been a long time. My relatives and I talked about you after that Chauga trip. We all agreed that we would never see you again.  But since then, you’ve taken a couple of CCC offices and are paddling and leading some trips on big rivers.”  Paul laughed and said I’ve had some good teachers.  People like Howard Du Bose. 

Howard Du Bose is one of the most illustrious names in early Carolina Canoe Club history.  Du Bose served in Vietnam and like many veterans, came home hardened and blunt.  He owned a canoe shop in Durham, River Runners Emporium, and eventually opened others in Chapel Hill and Charlotte.  Howard taught many area paddlers river skills and he did it with the gusto and verve of a Marine drill instructor.  He was not a “river whisperer.”  More like a “river shouter.”

Howard paddled canoes, solo and tandem, but when his paddling partners became leery of sharing a boat with him, he switched to the new craze: C-1’s and kayaks.  He was skilled with them all and soon began running bigger rivers and taking promising paddlers with him.  Dennis Huntley said Howard taught him how to roll a kayak in one day on the New River Gorge.  Howard paddled Chattooga IV, the Upper Gauley and the Grand Canyon.  If you could weather his tirades, Howard was a person who could teach you something.

Paul knew he didn’t know anything and needed a good teacher.  Howard was the man and putting in at Chicken Bridge on the Haw, they would proceed downstream, on command catching eddies and executing strokes.  “Run this. Do a harder draw.” In fact, Du Bose preferred to be called Commander.  Or more fully, Commander Greenstreet.  The Greenstreet referred to his address in Durham.  Witness this excerpt from a CCC Paddler:

         SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Commander Greenstreet takes pleasure in announcing that John Gillespie, (Captain Tipover) and Robin Gordon, (Sergeant Slatts) are herewith members in good standing of the GREENSTREET IRREGULARS.

Paul shared the Commander’s classroom with a new friend, Tom McCloud.  Howard perhaps took it a little easier on them because they were a bit older.  Du Bose often had Duke University students in his river class and showed little mercy to them.  “You ran my canoe on a rock again.  I’m going to come over there and beat the sxxx out of you, you mxxxxxxxxxxkers.”   Paul and Tom would sometimes drift to the other side of the river to put distance on their association with Howard.  Some people felt Du Bose enjoyed practicing his rescue skills and would set up situations that allowed him the opportunities.  As Paul said, “Howard had unusual techniques and colorful language.”

Still, Howard was a good paddler and a good friend to his friends.  Paul remembers paddling the Lower Haw one time, some years later, “I was running down past Gabriel’s Bend and into Tombstone, broached my aluminum canoe on the rocks sticking up and couple of us who were there couldn’t get it loose.  It was pushed in, didn’t have a lot of flotation. Went on out with someone else.  While at the steel bridge take-out, Howard came down the river and had my canoe, he’d gotten it loose and brought it to me.  I have nothing bad to say about Howard.  Brought my canoe out.  Thanks, Commander Greenstreet!”

Paul’s first experience in a canoe wasn’t good- “A friend and I took a canoe out on a lake.  We were about 15 years old. It was a sailing canoe, and we didn’t know anything about canoeing or sailing and we just went out there and the wind blew us over.  Fortunately, some residents saw us and came out to help.  I wasn’t afraid, I was more embarrassed.  (Keep track of that statement, it becomes a theme.)  We got back to shore and dumped the sail and paddled around a little bit with just the paddles.

Much later, Paul was in Florida, at Cape Canaveral working for IBM when a co-worker, Bob Nabell, a friend from Georgia Tech days, mentioned the beautiful rivers nearby and suggested Paul and he canoe some of them.  A weekend paddling/camping trip ensued. They burdened Bob’s canoe so much gear that swamping was a concern.  On later trips they would rent another canoe and bring work friends.  Paul enjoyed the canoeing and exploring scenic rivers, but he had a demanding job and a young family and a full dive into the hobby would have to wait.

While living at Cape Canaveral, Paul was employed by IBM Federal Systems Division and worked on a NASA contract to operate and maintain the ground computer system.  During his tenure the first two Saturn V rockets launched: Saturn 501 and 502.  For the Saturn 502 launch, Paul was the technical leader of the ground computer system, meaning if a computer malfunctioned, his job was to direct the repair.  This was no small job.  Roughly two years before, a fire in the command module of the Apollo1/Saturn SA-204 rocket had killed three astronauts during a launch rehearsal.  All the future missions were even more highly scrutinized.

After work on the Saturn 502 rocket concluded and preparations for the first lunar landing were set, Paul decided to make a career move.  Remaining at NASA would mean a year of testing on the new Saturn 503 rocket, and he wanted a change, a chance to work on developing new products.  A transfer to Systems Development Division was made and Raleigh was his new home.  Shortly after his move, Apollo 11 landed successfully, allowing the first humans, Armstrong and Aldrin, to walk on the moon.

Paul liked Raleigh.  He liked the weather and the neighborhoods, and he liked his co-workers.  Two IBM’ers, Len Felton and Steve Henderson, became close friends and then neighbors and fellow paddlers.

Paul was in the yard of his Raleigh home one weekend and thought, I don’t enjoy yardwork that much.  What would I enjoy doing?  Then he remembered.  Paddling those Florida rivers was fun, being outdoors, getting good exercise.  He began looking around, doing some research.  He purchased books and magazines.

After the Chattooga/Chauga trip and basic training with Howard Du Bose, Paul started looking for other paddling trips.  He met lots of new people: Tom McCloud, mentioned above, Frank Held and his talented son, Matt, Cleo Smith, Jack Powell and others.  These became life-long friends and companions on some of his far-ranging trips.

In April of 1974. Paul participated in a CCC joint trip with the Coastal Canoeists of Virginia.  It was another set of new friends, and he soon joined their group.  The CCC and Coastals were similar in their endeavors but there were differences too.  The Carolina Canoe Club had one of the oldest Week of Rivers events in the nation, based in Nantahala/Bryson City area of North Carolina.  The Coastals did WOR differently.  They would set up camp, run some rivers, take down their tents and go somewhere else.  So, their WOR base was not central for all trips, but a moveable feast. Paul bought a full-sized van, the only type of vehicle he’s owned since then.

The Coastals roamed far and wide.  Paul participated in several of their western trips on rivers like the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Rio Grande.  These were mostly guided trips, where local knowledge and raft support came with the river. Other Coastal trips ranged into Canada, and some were self-guided.  Paul took notice.

During this time Paul was broadening his skills and knowledge.  He bought a new canoe, a Mad River Endural 16ft ABS model with wooden gunnels.  More vessels would follow.   A Safety training course with the Coastal Canoeists convinced him to bring similar instruction to the CCC.  In 1983, Paul became the first Safety and Education Chair for the club, teaching on-river safety courses.  Robin Pope and others were getting interested in safety training and one of the cornerstones of CCC’s mission had been laid.

Other cross-fertilization occurred with the Coastal/Carolina club connections.  One example:   Paul ran the Class III-IV Big Laurel, the river that flows into the French Broad near Hot Springs, on a joint trip with the Coastal group.  He mentioned this to Tom McCloud and Tom convinced him to coordinate a similar trip for the CCC.  The Big Laurel was running high when the Carolina canoeists arrived, but they tackled it anyhow, with high-schooler Matt Held, leading the way.  Tom McCloud wrote a report of the trip published in the American Whitewater Journal Jan/Feb 1978 edition.  Matt Held is on the cover, dropping the right side of Suddy Hole.

Trips to Chattooga with the Coastals led to another Howard Dubose story.  The Coastals had popularized an alternative line at the signature Bull Sluice rapid, perhaps pioneered by Doug Woodward. It became known as the “Virginia line.”  Paul was on a Howard-led trip and Howard ran Bull Sluice first, doing the traditional right-side route.  He waited at the bottom for Paul to follow.  Paul approached the drop standing in his canoe, which caused a stir in the on-lookers.  At the last moment he crouched and ran the drop on the Virginia line.  Howard was screaming, “No, no.” and pointing in the other direction but Paul pushed on, following the Virginia line successfully.  Howard seemed displeased but Paul felt the thrill of graduating to a new level.

Paul began researching other pursuits.  Paddlers were starting to travel the world in search of fast water, beautiful scenery, and wilderness adventures.  These expeditions required planning, coordination, and other new skills in addition to those used on single day paddles.  Expeditions were projects and Paul had an occupational background in leading large-scale projects.  He had an eye for nuances of detail, an aptitude for modeling what could happen and anticipating a response.  He did his research, first by reading what he could find on the subject.  Early influences were two books, “Pole, Paddle and Portage” by Bill Riviere and “The Complete Wilderness Paddler” by James Davidson and John Rugge.

The Davidson-Rugge book taught wilderness skills based on experiences doing their first major wilderness trip down the Moise River in Canada.  The book is still regarded as one of the most useful (and funny) paddle-tripping books ever written.

Son David has a somewhat different take.  “Dad was gone for a long time, almost a month.  I remember when he was due home, I was excited to see him.  He had grown a full beard.  I don’t like beards.  Still don’t like beards.  I slammed the door in his face and said, “I don’t know who that is but that’s not my dad.  He rocked that beard for a long, long time after that.”

Meanwhile, Paul’s personal life was changing.  Paul had grown up in Washington, DC, then Natchez, Mississippi and later Shreveport, Louisiana.  His dad was involved in the growing petroleum industry infrastructure, traveling frequently to assess new drilling locations throughout Alaska, South America and the U.S.  One of Paul’s long-term friends, Fred Reagor, was a classmate in Shreveport.  They shared an interest in ham radio, a hobby Paul started at age 12 and one he still indulges, especially on rainy days.

The two friends both wanted to pursue engineering degrees and they became roommates at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta.  Both married women from the Atlanta area. Paul had met an artist, Jonna White, and they would soon marry.  He completed his degree in electrical engineering, briefly considered an advanced degree and then accepted a job with IBM.  From there, Paul and Jonna moved to Cape Canaveral, where son, David was born in 1966.

In 1969, Paul and family made the jump to Raleigh.  Paul was happy there.  He enjoyed his job, his friends, the paddling community, and pace of life.  Jonna had spent her life in Atlanta, then Florida and now Raleigh.  She was an artist and was looking for a more vibrant, engaging area, something more exotic and less suburban.  Many of the IBM community were taking assignments to places like Paris. Jonna was eager to try something different.  Paul wasn’t.  He liked it in Raleigh.

David remembers his mother telling him Paul and her were parting ways.  He had a difficult time understanding it.  They never quarreled and seemed happy enough.  The time of parting ways finally came and as David remembers it, his mom took a globe and said, “I’m going to spin this globe and if it lands on a free country, that’s where I’m going.”  The first spin landed her in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  Second spin and her finger touched the Virgin Islands.  David asked, “There’s a place called the Virgin Islands?”  Jonna still lives there today, operating an art gallery on St. Thomas.

Soon after their parting, Paul went to his boss at IBM.  His boss asked if there was any new endeavor Paul would like to try?  Paul thought and answered, “I’d like a foreign assignment, preferably somewhere they speak English.”  The boss said he’d asked around.  After lunch that day, Paul was called back in to see his boss. He had just learned his division was sending someone to London for a three-year assignment.  Did Paul want to consider it? Paul thought for a few moments and said, yes, he would like to go.  So, in 1980, Paul puts his Raleigh house on hold, and moves to London.

David reflects on the separation and the moves each parent made.  When Jonna heard Paul was moving to England, she said if she had known that would happen, she would have stayed together.  Paul countered that if she had stayed, he wouldn’t have moved to England.

David speaks fondly of both his parents.  While he had no choice in their decision, the changes made for a varied and interesting childhood.  School years spent with one or the other parent in the Virgin Islands, in England, in Florida, summers and holidays with the other parent.  He eventually started college at N.C. State and finished in law school, passing the bar in 1993, the same year Paul retired from IBM.

This is Paul’s story but listening to David’s tales give a good idea of what kind of father and man Paul is. By this time, David had become a decent paddler.  Paul and he would paddle the River Thames, often going from Windsor to London, with an overnight stay.  They would paddle to a pub, get some fish and chips, a beer for Paul, and then usually camp on the pub’s riverfront.  One day, they are paddling, and there’s a man on the bank fishing.  He casts his lure directly in front of them and starts yelling.  “Don’t you know how to paddle a canoe?”  David explains his dad was usually a very calm guy, not given to anger, but on this occasion, Paul barks back, “I can canoe better than you can fish.”  The chirping continues and fifteen-year-old David tells his dad, “Pull over.  I got this guy.  I’ll take care of him.”  They continue paddling.

This wasn’t Paul’s only odd encounter on the Thames.  Paddling with a few others one day, someone spots what appeared to be a coconut or ball on the wall.  Paul approaches and prods the object with his paddle.  It’s the head of a corpse.  The person is long dead, so Paul ties a rope around the body and tows him to shore.  With help from friends, they contact the local law enforcement and the bobbies question Paul.  Why did the man have a rope wrapped around him?  Can you show us the rope?  Paul is put out.  Eventually, the officers acknowledged the body in question belonged to a person known for frequently overindulging.  The official police report cited, “Death by Misadventure.”

Meanwhile, Paul was looking for other rivers to paddle, other adventures to have. He met an American who was organizing a trip to northern Sweden, above the Arctic Circle.  Paul considered joining but various events prevented it.  Ultimately, he called up his old Carolina paddling buddy, Cleo Smith and asked him if he wanted to tag along on a paddling trip in France.  Cleo agreed and they spent several weeks doing leisurely flatwater paddling on the Dordonne, the Ardeche Gorge (known as the Grand Canyon of Europe) and the Rhone rivers.  While there were no whitewater thrills, the scenery was stunning.  Beautiful river valleys with castles lining the banks, their ornate features on display to the river.

There were other sights.  Rounding a bend, Cleo and Paul were surprised to see a woman diving off a cliff, without a swimsuit.  They soon realized this section of the river was a clothing optional affair.  Cleo explained, “Mentally, like anything, you go to a square dance, and you don’t dance, and you feel out of place.  Here we are, fully dressed, in our boat and we paddle right through them.”  At a lunch stop, Cleo looks up to a woman running their way, waving, and shouting, “Carolina, Carolina.”  Cleo says, “Who’s this?”  Paul explains, “They are the couple we paddled with upriver.  They just don’t have any clothes on.”

For Paul’s next European expedition, clothes would be required.  Paul had communicated with the American leading the Swedish trip the year before and was sent a trip report and other notes.  Paul meticulously devoured this information as well as anything else he could learn about Lapland.  He began canvasing his friends and fellow paddlers and a team was assembled:  Cleo Smith, Frank Held (Matt’s dad) and Jack Powell.

This would be no leisurely Dordonne paddle.  The water was frigid, Class III rapids plentiful, immense whirlpools grabbing and clutching and the biggest rapids at the end:  long, powerful Class IV’s.  Then they were challenged by a treat offered by their Swedish hosts, surstromming or “sour fish”, apparently an acquired taste.  Paul has written a thorough report on this Lapland trip, and we will make it available for interested readers in a later posting in Carolina Paddler.

Paul’s time in England came to an end and he returned to his Raleigh home.  The house, where Paul still lives, is an engineer’s dream.  Beautifully situated in hilly, wooded neighborhood close to Umstead Park, the house is of an experimental design, a “double-envelope” building.  Essentially a complete structure encased in an outer shell.  Looking out a bathroom window, six inches of air separate an inner window and wall and the outer window and wall.  Paul says the architectural design was an intriguing passive solar experiment but too expensive to become a popular approach.

Paul was lured to this neighborhood by the view, forest and proximity but also by a good friend and co-worker at IBM, Len Felton.  For extra measure another IBM’er, Steve Henderson also lived in the neighborhood. Together they would have many excursions in the coming years, paddling trips to Okeefeenokee and throughout the state.  Len enjoyed water in all forms and suggested they try scuba diving.  In 1986, they went headfirst and soon were taking trips to the Red Sea, Vietnam, the Coral Sea and more.  Diving became a complimentary hobby to paddling for Paul, but not his only one.

From the age of twelve, Paul had been interested in ham radio, the amateur version of short-wave radio communication.  His childhood friend in Shreveport, Fred Reagor, also enjoyed tinkering with radios, getting “hits” from other enthusiasts all over the world.  Much like birdwatchers, ham operators keep a log of whom they have contacted along with documentation.  For instance, Paul has pro-communist literature sent from operators in the Soviet Union.

After graduating from Georgia Tech, Fred moved back to Shreveport and there enlisted Paul’s help in constructing a radio tower.  With the tower topping out at 54 feet, the heights-challenged Fred became the ground man, Paul the climber.  Paul had always liked to climb.  While a young child living in Natchez, a son of the family’s cook often accompanied Paul on romps in the nearby woods.  The boy, called June Baby, was an avid climber and showed Paul the way.  They frequently ascended fifty feet or more in the immense cathedrals of the Mississippi riverside.

Now is a good time to discuss one aspect of Paul which he doesn’t like to dwell on.  In his later teens, Paul began experiencing pain in his neck and back.  Eventually his parents had doctors evaluate his condition and a form of arthritis was diagnosed, causing his vertebra to gradually calcify.  His doctor observed that Paul had an erect posture, which was good and would serve him well as he grew older.  From this point on, Paul, never a lay about, devoted himself to staying fit and active.  His son, David, says, “Dad was always lifting weights, working out, bicycling, jogging, and paddling.  I think that’s one thing that attracted him to canoeing.  It was an activity that got him outside, around other people, using his body and staying active.”

This condition comes up now because Paul, despite his impressive collection of years, has maintained his conditioning.  His walk is a little slower, his posture still erect but perhaps stiffer, his determination undaunted.  He rides his bike in nearby Umstead Park, paddles local rivers and chops wood.  A lot of wood.  His woodpile, without resupply, could easily withstand several severe winters.

Continuing our ham radio thread, Paul helped friend, Fred, assemble his fifty-foot tower, with Paul doing the climbing and the antenna installation at the top.  He wasn’t foolhardy in the enterprise. He used a climbing harness that allowed for alternating dual tethering as a means of safely climbing the tower.  Attach one carabiner and strap and go up a couple of steps, attach another and release the first and reattach.

When Fred came to visit Paul in Raleigh, Paul of course, had to show him his own radio tower.  Fred remarked it was the same style and height as the one he had; the one Paul helped assemble.  Fifty-four feet.  When quizzed about the need for maintaining a tower and accompanying antenna like this, Paul explained, “The one I’ve got is a 54ft. fixed tower with a rotor on top.  The ideal thing, the thing I should have done, is to get a fold-over tower. One that telescopes up and down or one that will bend over.  Then you could do maintenance without climbing the tower.  I don’t have that ability so, too bad. The antenna I have is high maintenance.  You must take it down to repair it so that means going up.”

Another friend of Paul’s, Bobby Simpson said he called Paul a couple of years ago and asked, “What have you been up to?   Paul said he’d been up on his tower, working on the antenna. Bobby said, ‘are you kidding me?  You really did that?”  Paul wasn’t joking.  While researching this article, Paul demonstrated his climbing technique, gaining altitude quickly, and nimbly descending.

While Paul has never had an accident climbing the radio tower, he has had some bumps and cuts in his thousands of miles of canoeing.  And one major accident.

Paul certainly never avoided calculated danger.  He could be the precise, methodical, carefully prepared paddler but he could also be a bit of a daredevil.  “A maniac,” as David Ferguson describes him.  Perhaps not maniacal but in 1995, Paul circulated an invitation to folks with whom he’d paddled difficult waters before.  “Invitation to Adventure” went out, detailing in true Ferguson form, the particulars of a drive to northern Labrador, a flight to a remote river, a paddle down miles of Class III rapids, a portage of a 100ft falls and several days of open-sea, open-canoe paddling to get to the pick-up point-a dismal place known for thefts, violence, and a bleak populace.

This would all happen if things went well.  Often, this same trip was thwarted by unpredictable weather, faulty shuttles, and other unforeseen difficulties.  The trip down the Notakwanon comes to pass and while not without its difficulties, it displayed Paul’s attention to detail, ingenuity, and ability to cooperate…  and to lead a group of squirrely adventurers.

The Notakwanon and Lapland expeditions remain as two of Paul’s most audacious projects. There’s another one, though, and it wasn’t as simple as either of these two trips.  Perhaps not as exotic, but far more extensive and beneficial to the Carolina Canoe Club and other paddle enthusiasts across the Carolinas.

In a separate article, “What I want to know,” we’ll explore the two guidebooks Paul wrote to make the rivers of Eastern North Carolina and South Carolina accessible to the world.  Described as the most comprehensive and useful books of their kind, we’ll learn why Paul chose to explore these rivers and write these books and how he went about doing so.  The trips were often arduous and unpredictable, sometime with more difficulty and danger than could be reasonably expected.  We’ll learn of Paul’s near fatal fall from a dam and his encounter with a pistol wielding robber.  We’ll also hear of his friendships, his love of the outdoors and the excitement of exploration.  In our concluding article, “Something I haven’t seen before,” we’ll follow Paul on his search for Methusaleh on the Black River of North Carolina.

Trip Report from the 1973 Chauga Paddle

From CCC Paddler newsletter:  Vol. 2  No.3   July 1973

River: Chauga River State: S. C. Date: May 26,1973

Put In: Bridge above U. S. 76

Take Out: Bridge below U. S. 76 Length in Miles: 10

Water Level or Gauge Reading: 2.0 on U. S. 76 bridge over

Chattooga

Time In: 10:30 a. m. Time Out: 3:30 p. m.

Total Time: 5 hrs.

Weather Conditions: Warm and sunny

Water Temperature: nice

Number of Boats: 15 Class: N/I

Special Hazards: One Class 4, one Class 5 at the pump station,

numerous Class 3’s.

Participants: Don Elliot, Dave Benner, Karen Pendergraph,

Bud Rockett, Steve & Tom Erikson, Tom Hall, Paul

Ferguson, Tom Dunnigan, Jack Jackson, Howard Dubose

& Mike, Bob Loddengaard & Tom, Bill Sugg & Will

Details of Trip: This trip was run as an alternate to the

Chattooga. When the gauge on the Chattooga reads as high as

2.0, the water in Section 3 gets heavy and the chances of los-

ing a boat or someone getting injured are greatly increased.

The Chauga was recommended by John Glover, and he gave us

a very accurate description of the river beforehand since none

of our group had been on the river before Saturday.

This is an ideally sized small river running through a deep

valley that is practically uninhabited. Mountain Laurel was

heavily in bloom and made an enjoyable trip more beautiful.

The Chauga has a couple of flat stretches but enough rapids to

make up for them. Even Dave’s eyes lit up when he saw the

“Can Opener” – a class 5 with a rock at the bottom shooting

water 10 to 12 feet into the air. It was here where we found

pieces of a C-l or kayak that had been smashed against the

rock. Dave ran this rapid like a pro, Bill buried up to his ears

at the bottom, and Howard missed the rock but did go

swimming unintentionally. The rest of us decided to carry

around this “boat eater.” Howard wasn’t the only wet guy on

on this trip. Buddy Rockett, Tom Erikson, and Tom Lod-

dengaard all turned over in different Class 3 rapids. Overall

this was a great trip, and I feel the Chauga River should be

added to the club’s regular schedule.

Steve Erikson

THE PADDLER