Nantahala Fall Colors
| River: | Nantahala |
| Skill: | Novice |
| Trip Date: | 10/19/2018 |
On Friday 10-19-18 Tom Womble and I paddled the Nantahala from Ferebee's down to the NOC for part one of the two part trip. We met in the parking lot of NOC and proceeded to transfer Tom's boat over to my car. As we were loading Tom's boat a guy, Dougie from New Zealand, came up and asked if we were running the river and if we were if he could join us. Tom and I told him he was welcome to join us. However, we were putting on at Ferebee's. He chose to run from the top down, so Tom and I headed up and rode up to the put-in and put on. We caught lots of eddies on the way down. Lots of eddies. By the time we got down just above the Bump, our friend, Dougie, caught up with us and ran the rest of the run with us. After we all ran the Falls cleanly, we paddled down to the Race Lot take out below The NOC Wave, with Tom and I taking on the Wave and running some slalom gates to the take out. We let Dougie know that we would be meeeting at the same place at 11am on Saturday. It was a beautiful day on the river.
Saturday morning came, the weather had changed, there was some rain and the temps had gotten cooler. Tom and I met at the NOC parking lot at about 10:30am. As we were driving over to the instruction department to pick up a Sea Kayak I was transporting back to Chapel Hill for Chris Hipgrave, we saw our new friend Dougie. We looked at our watches and saw that he was 30 minutes early. Ok guess he wants to join us. We let Dougie know we will be right back.
We get up to the put-in and get our gear all set, put in and start our run. Tom showed me a new line he likes to run now, eddie out on river left and stay left of Jaws in Patton's. It was a fun line and I will do it again. We continued down and saw a swiftwater rescue team from Chatham County, NC, getting actual training, by rescuing two girls that were pinned on a rock in a ducky. We proceeded down stream leaving the rescue to the professionals. On our way down we caught lots of eddies. Lots.
After an uneventful run down to Ferebee's, we encountered a duckie with two girls init broached on a rock, just above the bridge. Our new friend Dougie was in the lead and made an attempt to grab the ducky and pull it off the rock. He missed and Tom was next up. Tom pulled them off the rock and they began drifting downstream. Sitting at Ferebees was an NOC Employee with a throw rope trying to get the girls in the ducky to grab it and get into shore. They missed and we played chase, bumper boats to try and get them safely past Delabar's rock. We finally got the corralled in an eddy below Delabar's. We left them in the care of the NOC staff and proceded eddy hopping down the Nanty. We showed Dougie the Walk the Dog Line and the Skin the Cat moves along with many eddies all up and down the Nanty. We all ran the Bump and the Falls cleanly and then proceded down to the NOC wave where, I blew my primary line but made my secondary line. When we got to the race lot take out, Dougie said, "wow, you really do like catching a lot of eddies. When you told me you liked to catch eddies I thought you might catch a few here and there and head on down. But no you catch an eddy here, then over there and then come back to here. This was great!"
I think he and Tom then made plans for later in the week to paddle again. It was great seeing Tom and meeting our new found Kiwi friend Dougie.
SYOTR
Doug Stager