Author: Rick Steeves

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John's flight in Charlotte was delayed, and he didn't get in until late Saturday.  Late enough I managed to convince him to not leave at the crack of dawn. We left at 8:30 am for a couple of days on the Noli. We arrived at the Noli Campground to find a Labor Day Celebration with live music in full swing. We asked about a shuttle driver from someone at the entrance, and one was sitting right there – how convenient! We quickly set up camp and were on our way, putting on around 3 pm with plenty of time.

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The true hassle of coordinating a trip is never knowing if anyone will show up. With last-minute heavy rain in the Triangle even more so. I could have just stayed home and paddled! Even posting weeks in advance, a few days out I had one confirmed person. On Thursday I briefly had six. Fortunately, it's the Ocoee.

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I usually coordinate this trip the end of April because I've found that the last weekend of April is late enough to be warm, but early enough to still have water somewhere. This year, I had more water than I wanted. After nervously watching water levels all week, we ended up with the Goldilock's Solution for kayaking: the Cape Fear was too high, the Eno was too low, but the Haw was mostly right (5.8', only a bit higher than my preferred novice level of 5.5').

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Ocoee Drawdown is a special time. It's not cold, but you can tell winter is coming. Except for this year, where the weather was in the 80s. It's a time of peace and quiet on the Ocoee, where you can find your way. Except this year, with the sadness of its impending end. 2018 is the last year of the last licensing agreement. While there was a lot of confusion about whether Drawdown would continue, it's on the release schedule for 2018. That said, it's not expected for 2019. 

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I've run a novice trip at the end of April (with a few notable gaps) since 1996, normally just non-boating friends that I've dragged along. I pick the end of April because it's the best window for possibly having water yet being warm enough for novices. A common complaint I hear is that the club needs to post more novice trips, and this year I extended that out to the club community.

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No dogs were rescued in the course of this Ocoee trip.

I haven’t spent much time on the water this year. Kayaking the Haw last week I was wondering whether I could even still roll. Then I screwed up at the bottom of Moose Jaw and at least answered that question. I know the Ocoee well (and can still play back all the rapids in my head), but it’d been almost a year. Wonder how that will go? Adding to that the weather reports showed close to freezing temps in Ducktown for the weekend.

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Well, I've been hankerin' to see just how many times I could run the Ocoee in a day, but I knew I needed one thing … shuttle. So for Labor Day weekend, my wife Marnie agreed to come along and spend a day running me/us back and forth, to see just what could be done. I’d had a few people contact me about the trip, but it all boiled down in the end to meeting Mark Kieran and Eric Tucker Saturday morning.

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