Labor Day Ocoee-a-thon
| River: | Ocoee |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 08/29/2014 |
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.
A bit concerned by the recent uptick in mountain cyclists at Thunder Rock, Marnie and I left home early Friday, arriving at the campground before dark. Ran into Dave Lunestra at one end of the campground, and we got to talking … which meant that I still ended up putting up my tent in the dark (but at least I have a lot of practice at it!).
Mark arrived around 8 the next morning, so we puttered around waiting for our planned departure time of 10 am, arriving at the put-in ~9:30. But no Eric! We waited in the throngs showing up, looking for Eric. At 10:15 we went to set shuttle, leaving Marnie behind to look for him, but upon our return no luck, so we set off. (We learned later he was across in the actual parking lot, and did manage to find folks to paddle with that day, which was good.)
It was a leisurely day on the Ocoee, wandering about, showing each other lines we didn’t know, or finding lines that we shouldn’t have tried. I had my “new” 2007 Fun with me as well, with the intent to swap boats back and forth and decide which I preferred. Unfortunately, the outfitting wasn’t right, so after a single run I went back to my 2010 Fun.
A light rain started about the time we were done. We cleaned up, had yet another great dinner at Herb’s Pit Barbecue, and headed back to camp to find it had rained at Thunder Rock … a lot (and was still raining). The campsite was partially underwater (perhaps that’s why no one’s ever in my favorite spot), but we moved the tent over, and nothing was really wet. We spent the rest of the evening playing card games in the back of my car (which has a surprising amount of room with the seats down flat).
We also caught up with Eric that evening (while picking up the next days’ supplies at the Piggly Wiggly). We let him know that we’d love to paddle with him, but that Sunday was going to be a little different than the usual day on the Ocoee, even for me, starting earlier, and planning on seeing just how many runs we could get in. He was (of course) welcome to paddle with us, but the expectation was that we weren’t really going to be hanging out much (or, really, at all). Eric said he wasn’t much of a playboater anyway, so he was willing to give it a try. He was a little concerned that he didn’t want to slow us down, because he’d brought his Jackson Fun. Once he knew what I was paddling, we decided that wouldn’t be a problem!
Doing a little math, Mark and I figured we’d meet him at 9:30. He was taking no risks this time, and planned to show up at 9. So we showed up at the dam at 8 am to see if we could get an early low-water run, only to find the dam going full-bore! Perfect! So we met Eric right at 9:30 for our second lap of the day. After that I’ll admit things are somewhat of a blur; we weren’t really pushing to go fast, just not really sitting still. Memorable moments include:
- Eric following me into me trying something quirky in Second Helping, only to have me flip and roll back up to watch him do that same
- On laps 2&3, Mark was trying to figure out how stuck he could get in Broken Nose. The answer was, “never enough”
- On about lap 3, Mark decided he needed something a little faster than his Jedi, and switched to his Nano.
- On about lap 4 Mark decided that he could punch Double Suck in his Nano.
- On about lap 4 Mark swam Double Suck.
- On about lap 4, I rescued a kayak halfway through Hell’s Half Mile. Mental note: Practice getting out your tow line in class III water.
- After lap 4 Marnie had stopped by Subway, and brought us all lunch!
After lap 5 Eric had to head out to spend the next day at the USNWC. I always have this twinge of concern when I paddle the Ocoee the first time with someone, and given the day’s goals was to see just how many times we could run it, I’ll admit there had been a bit more of that than usual. But no worries! We realized early in the first run that Eric’s a rock-solid boater (and the number of people who have run 4 laps on the Ocoee with me I can count on one hand).
- Around lap 6 I started to occasionally almost but not quite miss things. I didn’t feel tired, but sometimes the muscles just couldn’t give me everything I was hoping for!
- On lap 8 I missed a line in Slice’n’Dice and wacked my elbow on the slide.
- On lap 9, we returned to the put-in as the water shutting off. Between that, and the fact that it was starting to approach dark, I had a little skepticism as to the practicality of the run. We decided Marnie would meet us at Goforth as an additional precaution. But we showed up at Goforth and waved on through to finish the last run!
One problem with getting off the water at ~ 8:30 pm (after almost 12 hour on the water) is finding somewhere to eat, and we definitely wanted something to eat. There was no hope for making it to Herbs, and Wildwater and the Copper Kettle were closed. So we made the trek back to the other side, and had a great dinner at the Whitewater Grill.
Monday was a bit more leisurely. We had a later start (Mark picked up breakfast for us from the Hardees), with the plan that Mark would park’n’play until he wore himself out, and I’d catch him on the back end of his run on my second lap. I’d also re-rigged the outfitting in the 2007 Fun. I took my time on the first run, finding that the outfitting still not quite right, and finished the second run on the 2010 Fun, with no sign of Mark! I decided I’d rather get home early than late, so we went back to Thunder Rock to pack up, and caught Mark on his way out. Apparently he couldn’t conceive of any way I wouldn’t have caught up with him, and he figured I’d only run it once and decided to call it day and pack it in.
After that we packed everything up, and headed home, some things damp but none the worse for wear (although my abs were sore on Monday). Fun weekend. Marnie rocks!
(As a bonus, no boats were stolen as part of this adventure)