Lee Martin met me at the put in early at 10:00 AM to run a couple of laps. We worked on walking the plank and eddy hopping broken nose among other moves. Raft guide trainees provided entertainment getting stuck far off line during the weekend. Watch a short video of some of the fun.
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.
Well, my first time back on the Ocoee since knee surgery…
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.
Well, I've written a lot of trip reports from the Ocoee, some filled with excitement and derring-do, and others that were just another weekend on the Ocoee. This is probably more the latter than the former, but it had its moments.
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.
Most everyone was clinic-bound for the weekend, so I didn't know who I'd have the chance to paddle with. John McDonald was providing safety for a clinic on Friday, but was to join me on Saturday, and I figured I'd play it by ear on Sunday. My wife Marnie had also come along in "shuttle bunny" capacity.
