Ocoee “Wonder what happens when the flume is out”
| River: | Ocoee |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 05/04/2013 |
Most everyone was clinic-bound for the weekend, so I didn't know who I'd have the chance to paddle with. John McDonald was providing safety for a clinic on Friday, but was to join me on Saturday, and I figured I'd play it by ear on Sunday. My wife Marnie had also come along in "shuttle bunny" capacity.
John and I arrived at the put-in around 10:30. Standing at the top of the ramp, rain pouring down, the outflow had completely covered the bottom platform. The eddy at the bottom? No more, clearly higher than either of us had run before. We waded across the flow on the platform (strong enough to almost knock me over!) on the bottom platform, and sat there locking ourselves into our boats, while looking at at the water, each other, back at the water again, back at each other, and decided we'd try something different.
We got back out of our boats.
We waded back across the water, hiked back up the ramp, and back down again to the put in below Entrance/Grumpies. We could then evaluate the next couple of smaller rapids to see just what we were in for. That lower put-in was ALSO under water, but we managed to get into our boats, receive some guidance from some raft guides, and set off.
John and I both know the Ocoee fairly well, and have both run it regularly, with even the rare foray into the 2200 cfs range. We didn't know the level, but it was higher than that. Many of the familiar landmarks were underwater. Everything was squirrely and big. We had a great run down, with only the occasional roll here and there. As we finally drifted into the lake at the bottom, we both looked at each other, and said, "Holy !@#$". John had a flight to catch, so he headed back out.
Since I had a bit more time on my hands, I decided to give it another go, and hooked up with four boaters from GA. Much to my surprise, as we headed down the ramp, the water levels were back down to an Upper release normal! We posited that they probably drop the water levels for the daily raft traffic. But I think we were down to Goforth before my adrenalin levels were starting to fall back into the normal range after that first run!
They too were headed out after that. On the drive back up, we picked up Adam, who was hitching back up after an unsatisfactory half-run in a demo boat. We ran into John at the top, and set forth. Adam opten to hang behind and play at Slice-N'-Dice, and John and I had a pleasant remaining run.
At the end of the day, I usually go to Herb's for dinner, but I hadn't realized just how routine it has become. As they seated Marnie and I at a booth, the waitress looked at me with recognition and said, "I hadn't realized it was that time of the year again!"
Late Saturday night John dropped me a line to let me know he'd heard the Ocoee would be closed to raft traffic on Sunday as they were going to be running it wide open, so I decided to call it a weekend. Checking tonight, the level was at ~2700 cfs for the first run on Sat., and ~1700 cfs the rest of the day. 9000 cfs Sunday!