Back on the Ocoee Again
| River: | Ocoee |
| Skill: | Intermediate+ |
| Trip Date: | 04/02/2016 |
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.
I’d hoped to get at least a reasonable start on Friday, but while packing realized I’d lost my wallet. I eventually found it (squirreled away in the car hidden from the aforementioned Haw trip), but by the time I left Durham it was after 6:00 pm. My cohorts this weekend were already set up at Thunder Rock, and had messaged their campsite, and I rolled in and set up camp with them about 12:30 am.
Dragging myself out of the tent in the morning, Larry and Jon were already up and about. The morning proceeded as usual, getting everything set up and on the water by around 11:00 am. We spent a while pondering that the Ocoee seemed low, and on an unusually exposed rock I came close to flipping at Entrance – a better start than swimming Entrance, but an ominous start.
Raft traffic was light all day. Larry showed us a few moves I didn’t know – always a fun addition to a day on the Ocoee. Larry had convinced Jon I would spent the whole day play-boating, so Jon was surprised at how fast we arrived at Hell Hole. The retaining wall at the Powerhouse had collapsed a few weeks ago, and while the power company has removed most of the debris, the left side of Powerhouse is now out of play, and the changes in the water level there have shifted Hell Hole around a bit, much to the chagrin of the local surfing crowd.
Setting up for the second lap, we ran into Mark and Margaret, who joined us for our second lap. By then the water levels had returned to the usual. While we had a few rolls and a couple of assists (none of them mine!), everyone stayed in their boats. Mark and Margaret returned home, and we headed to Herb’s Barbecue.
For the evening Jon headed out on a mission to watch some sports game. Larry and I eventually retreated from the cold to our tents, meeting an exuberant Jon in the morning because some crowd of random strangers apparently are better than some other crowd of random strangers at throwing a ball.
I learned my cheap cell plan has absolutely zero signal at Thunder Rock (and the put-in, and the take-out, and Ducktown, and Herb’s, and, really nowhere to the west of Murphy). We’d planned to meet up with Mark and Margaret in the morning, but I missed his message saying he was headed to the Tellico, so we got a slightly later start than intended. Even so, we were off the water by 1:00 pm. I’d planned on running a second lap, but Sunday felt colder than Monday, and I was cold and still feeling rusty, so I headed home.