Low water Cheoah with notes re pin potential at Bear Creek Falls
| River: | Cheoah |
| Skill: | Intermediate+/Advanced |
| Trip Date: | 07/01/2013 |
Initial caveat, I don't know how to rate this river at this water level per the CCC descriptions. REALLY STRONG eddy catching skills are recommended.
Hopefully I'm operating the photo gizmo correctly and an image of four lovely sweaty athletic women in red canoes below a waterfall appears above. It's tough for me to imagine a better start to a paddling trip.
This run is a hoot during the releases (think 800 – 1200 cfs) but frankly I like it better at low natural flows. We had about 140 cfs at the USGS gauge. I'm pretty sure you want this gauge: USGS 0351706800 CHEOAH RIVER NR BEARPEN GAP NR TAPOCO, NC. It's listed under the Tennessee River Basin (ahem, in North Carolina) online. In 2012 we had 275 cfs which was great. I'm missing some notes but we did a run some years ago at below 100 cfs. Still fun, especially since the rocks are mostly covered with thick moss so you just slide along, but over 100 cfs is better.
At these lower flows there are countless features to mess with along the way. It's pretty, it's mostly roadside but for the most part you don't notice that so much beyond taking some comfort, there's plenty of action, it's short so you can do laps, and it's not so far from camp if you happen to be doing the CCC WOR thing. It's roughly forty miles each way. Check a map for directions as I didn't take notes but I think it's 74 west around twenty miles to turn right on 129 for another roughly twenty miles. We put in just below Bear Creek Falls which is obvious from the road. Many put in higher than that at these levels, an option with good merit, but our group didn't want to run the falls and the portage is not friendly.
Below the Falls we headed far left for a steep section which gets folks' attention. It's quite manageable but you are diving into eddys to slow down the action. Good low-impact creeking but again you need to be willing to commit to eddies. A strategy of bomb down the middle and hang on until the pool appears will be disappointing here.
After the initial sequence things ease up a bit, get steeper for a bit, ease up a bit, lather, rinse, repeat. Big fun.
Eventually you reach the spot where the Cheoah meets the water which was diverted from it in the first place. I haven't studied it but apparently various sources feed Fontana Lake which spills into Cheoah Lake (presumably through a power-generating dam) which then spills into Calderwood Lake. It's a bit of a mind-bender for me to run the Cheoah to end up in a moving reservoir which is rather ice-cold and has a massive dam just upstream. You end the run paddling this flow (flat but short) and taking out at a concrete ramp.
Soooo, on to the pin potential thing.
On the day of our trip another group put on at a bridge crossing the river well upstream of Bear Creek Falls. There are plenty of fun reasons to do that. My information on the results is very much second-hand but I will report what I was told along with what I have observed. At these lower levels one of the usual lines at release a bit left of center is not an option as you land on a slab after dropping, guessing, twelve feet. The slightly further right line suggests some promise but I wonder about the nature of the boulders there. Kinda looks like a five foot bonk onto a slab at the end. It's been done.
The more obvious choice is the channel on bank-right. It's been run many times with generally bumpy but harmless results.
The group behind us experienced a couple of pins, one apparently momentary, one more serious, both very thankfully resolved without injury. Again, this is second-hand information. Forgive please if I misrepresent. Inserting another photo. Dang greenery gets in the way.
Word on the street says that sideways in a yak over line # 2 makes for an unfriendly day. Hit it straight.
I'll leave it at that.
Have fun, be safe,
Ken