Ocoee Drawdown 2021
| River: | Ocoee |
| Skill: | Intermediate+ |
| Trip Date: | 09/25/2021 |
The Middle Ocoee is a Class III/III+ river with 15 rapids packed almost back-to-back for five miles. One of the most heavily-rafted rivers in the world, during Drawdown the dam-controlled Ocoee runs the entire week, with little to no raft-traffic mid-week—a great chance to enjoy the Ocoee in peace.
Leading up to Drawdown, it had been a long week. I arrived a day early, just to get some downtime before my vacation started! I arrived at Thunder Rock Campground late on Thursday and set up camp. While the forecast for the next week looked good, Thursday night was cold, clocking in at 41 degrees. I spent most of Friday hiking, either on the Ocoee river bed, or up Goforth Creek.
Folks started to arrive Friday afternoon. Like any event, attendance was a bit up on the air, with people joining up and canceling last minute, so I wasn’t quite certain where we’d land each day. I did know we had a good mix of experienced, Ocoee-experienced, and first-timers along. The temps Friday night improved, if only to a miserly 47 degrees. But the forecast for Sat. looked good—in the mid-70s.
Saturday morning we assembled in camp, and departed for the put-in at the scheduled release time – 9:00 am. One of the nice things about Thunder Rock? We arrived at the put-in at 9:03 am to unload and set shuttle. Meeting earlier would mean potentially outrunning the water!
For our initial run, we had: Jim, Stuart, Chasity, Rich, Brett, and Rick. Chasity and Rich were our first-timers for the day. Both were solid paddlers, but Rich had brought a new boat, which created a paddling experience not quite what he expected.
It was halfway down the first run I realized I’d left my car key on the signpost at the put-in. Nothing to be done about it at the time; I figured it would be there when we rolled back around. Except it wasn’t, and it hadn’t been turned in to the rangers. Given we had plenty of shuttle, and a spare key (now locked in the car), I decided to deal with it later. Since the first run had gone swimmingly well, we repeated it. On the second run, Chasity again proved she has an absolutely bomber roll.
At the takeout, struggling with poor cell reception, I used Stuart’s phone to call AAA. While they initially wanted a physical address, we settled on GPS coordinates. AAA said they’d have someone there in an hour or so. Everyone else headed back to camp, while I waited at my car for AAA.
Brett swung by on the way to dinner, where I still waited. *sigh*. Brett left me a jacket, much appreciated with dropping temperatures. After dinner, Brett swung back through to find me … still waiting. A long, frustrating call with AAA resulted in learning that not only was no one dispatched, but that they didn’t have anyone to dispatch! Frustrated, I canceled the request, and we headed back to camp. That’s a call to AAA for another day.
Sunday Chasity and Rich decided for a later start. Ed had shown up the night before, and Joe met us at the takeout, for a first group of: Stuart, Jim, Ed, Joe, and Rick. While setting shuttle the group ran into one of the rangers, and we arranged to meet him at the end of our first run. After only a few minutes, he popped the door and I was key (and phone, and wallet) enabled again. We caught back up with Chasity and Rich for the second run. Ed decided once was enough (for the day!). Chris knows me too well, and was waiting to join us at the takeout, leaving us with Jim, Joe, Stuart, Chasity, Rich, and Rick for the second run.
With the smaller group, and the longer Sunday release, a number of folks decided to make a second (or third, depending) run of it: Joe, Chasity, Rich, Chris, Rick. With Herb’s Barbecue closing at 3:00 pm on Sundays, we had dinner at the Dam Diner, to rave reviews.
The weather continued to improve. Sunday evening was in the high 50s, with the daily temp rising to the mid 70s. That trend continued all week, leaving us with lows in the 60s, and highs in the low 80s. We could not have had better weather—warm, sunny days and nicely cool nights.
People continued to arrive, with twelve on Monday (our largest group of the week): Lisa, Jim, Stuart, Chris, Dave, Chasity, Rich, Dave2, Joe, Ed, Les, and Rick. With the larger group, we arranged our paddling order a bit to optimize for group size and experience. Jerry arrived, but chose to paddle with a group that was theoretically going to playboat more (his group pulled off within minutes of us, so not so much!). A number chose a second run: Lisa, Jim, Stuart, Chris, Dave, and Rick.
By Tuesday we had our rhythm. Chris’s wife Amy would help to set shuttle, and then wander off to explore the area. Jerry chose to paddle with us for the first run down before heading towards home (via a lot of other paddling along the way). Another larger group of: Rick, Stuart, Jim, Chris, Lisa, Jerry, Ed, Les, and Dave. For our second run we had what becoming our core group of Stuart, Jim, Chris, Lisa, and Rick. At the end of the day I still had shuttle set for a third run.
Tuesday night Jim, Stuart, and Rick headed to Copper Hill for dinner. Except that most everything was closed until Thursday. The final result was a combination of Subway and gas station fried chicken, and Canadian geese!
Brian arrived Tuesday night, and joined our core group of paddlers for the first run on Wednesday: Brian, Lisa, Dave, Jim, Stuart, Rick (Chris was off for the day). We also added “Rich” at the campground the night before, looking for some company (and a shuttle). For our second run we had Jim, Stuart, Lisa, Dave, “Rich”, Rick, and then a quick third run with just Brian and Rick after resetting shuttle.
By Wednesday we’d noticed that while the scheduled release was from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, after drawing down the lake at the end of the day via the spillway, they were leaving the spillway partially open, putting about 400-500 cfs into the river bed even after the water was “off”.
Wednesday night, knowing our options limited to the east, we ate at the Gondolier, offering a mix of Italian and Greek. Generally the reviews were, at best, “adequate”.
When setting shuttle for Thursday, we could see the effects of the partial release. The water from the release starting around 9:00 am, with a gap in the water in the riverbed formed from closing the spillway prior to the morning release to bump the lake level up, and then in “front” of the gap the water from the 400 cfs release. That started some discussion. I’ve run the Middle Ocoee ~10 times at ELF (extremely low flow) releases, with no release. What would the Ocoee be like at that partial release?
The first and second runs on Thursday were Stuart, Jim, Brian, Lisa, and Rick. At the end of the day we could again see that low release. Talking that night, we came up with a plan. We’d head out in the early hours of the morning, to try to catch the window with the lower release, without catching the gap of no water, nor being caught by the water coming in from the usual release. We’d leave camp at 7:00 am and put on without setting shuttle. Lisa would pick us up at the takeout at 9:00 am (where we’d then set shuttle for the day). In preparation, we loaded up Stuart’s car.
Dinner was, of course, Herb’s Barbecue—my default choice for fine dining at the Ocoee.
Friday morning I was up at 6:15 am. As we moved around camp preparing for departure, Stuart called me over to his tent. In a very serious voice: “We have a problem”. “What?” I asked. Stuart’s serious response cracked me up: “It’s dark!” Given my headlamp, I had noticed. Yet dark is usually followed by daylight, and putting on at 7:20 am the sun was up. Stuart hadn’t slept well, so dropped us off and returned to camp and sleep. While Brian was enthusiastic about the low-water plan, Jim at one point said, “I was only doing this because Stuart was doing it!”
Wow that was fun; that run was a blast! The line through Double Suck was the classic one (with some care). As all I could see above Flipper ledge was a huge boil line, we shore scouted it (and boofed, if slightly farther to the right than usual). I was eddy hopping my way carefully down Tablesaw, when Brian decide he could just plow through like Jim but doing a slightly worse job for staying out of my way. Jim and I chose to go around the lower rock in Diamond Splitter, causing us problems where Brian just boofed over it! Accelerator had high stone walls like passing through a canyon. The “LowCoeee”, creek-style! We rolled up to the takeout at exactly 9:00 am 🙂 We did have slow going in the shoals above Broken Nose—should have gone farther right!
Lisa joined us for the second and third run on Friday. Chris took the day off to explore the area with his wife.
Given our early Friday start, we decided to start Saturday an hour after the water turned on at 9:00 am. Except that the weekend release had changed from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm to 10:00 am – 4:00 pm anyway, so we ended up right on time. We started off with Jim, Lisa, Chris, Brian, and Rick. The second and third runs of the day included Lisa, Chris, Brian, and Rick. There was a desire there for a 4th lap, but we didn’t quite have time (or, to be honest, energy!).
Early Sunday morning I woke to the rain that the forecast said was 2:00 pm. The campground flickered with headlamps as people scrambled to get things out of the rain before things settled down again. Chris stayed around for a final run with me. Everyone else began their long drives home.
By the end of the week, everyone knew the lines (even those of the rocks and holes for the road into Thunder Rock). Most runs included at least one roll. We had a few swims scattered across the week, although nothing truly spectacular. Even with his brief stay, Rich used his new boat to launch himself into first place for the Ocoee Triathlon (Boat, Swim, Run). Chasity had by far the most reliable roll. Probably the best rescue of the week was Chris making a t-rescue in the middle of Slice N’ Dice. Although Stuart at the bottom of Tablesaw, skipping the usual boat into Diamond Splitter or the lower eddy, instead getting the boat swiftly into the upper eddy, was a close second. A special shout out to Chris’s wife Amy, who assisted with shuttle most days. I’m sure I missed someone somewhere but hopefully that’s close!
All told, just an incredible week. Weather we can but hope will be exactly the same next year. Across the group we had 16 people, 22 separate (shuttled) laps, and a combined 112 runs down the Ocoee. Thanks to everyone for an amazing nine days of Drawdown. See everyone again in 2022!
Foot notes:
The app that will let you navigate without cell service is OSMAnd (https://osmand.net/). I’ve used it to cross some 30 countries.
For the full story of why I call the rapid “Hound Dog”, see: https://www.carolinacanoeclub.org/tripreport/dog-days-ocoee/