Archives: Trip Reports

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Two Trip Weekend

Saturday October 19, 2013 – French Broad Section 9

Martha was a bit nervous about her first time as a “trip coordinator”. However she had been on French Broad – Section 9 many times before and the crew was equally experienced. The level was a moderate 1450 cfs and the weather was also sunny and moderate. As it turned out her biggest task was organizing the shuttle. We had a crew of about a dozen, with a mix of kayaks and open canoes. It was a pretty mellow day.

Sunday October 20, 2013 – Nolichucky

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I've tried to run a novice trip every year on the last weekend of April. Usually late enough that it's warm, and early enough that there's still rain somewhere. In recent years we've managed warm, but usually the water was lacking, and we'd end up on the Fear at about 1.6', a level I've sworn (twice) I'd never run it again.

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While I planned this trip months in advance, recent rain in the Triangle area caused a run of cancellations, and in the end it was just me, driving to Ducktown from NC, and Mark Kieran, driving up from FL.

After a lousy start leaving the house (mostly looking for my lost bicycle lock), I still managed an earlier than usual start leaving town around 4:30. Mark had left at about the same time, 12 hours earlier, and spend Friday evening playing in Hell Hole.

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Beautiful day on Section 3.5 of Chattooga

We had a large group of 19 boaters show up for the trip which included 1 inflatable kayak, 15 hard shell kayaks and 1 c1.  The weather was beautiful, mid 70’s with a blue sky. 

We played our way down to Bull Sluice. After scouting, a few decided to walk it and the rest decided to run it.  We had a few run the double drop which one or two ran it not by choice.

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We had a nice group of five paddlers with one or two that played hooky to paddle the Upper Green.  Rough weather had been forecast with heavy thunder storms rolling thru while we would be on the river, so I was a little nervous.  Once at the put in we noticed no other cars were there so we had the river to ourselves. We played a little on our way down.  The water is warm up nice this season and the air temperature was a little hot for a dry suit.   So once we hit the nice rolling pool, a few decided to hit a roll or two to cool off.

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The weather forecast undoubtedly suppressed turnout, but on game day the elements cooperated and 5 paddlers had an excellent run down to Stackhouse at 2000 cfs, with only a few minutes of light drizzle.  Kathy Simes styled her personal first descent, and everyone had a good time at an excellent level.  we coulda/shoulda gone down to run Frank Bell's (Plan A), but the forecast was for increasing rain and dropping temperatures so we opted to get off sooner.

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I’ve seen this rapid before.

I’ve stood, trembling slightly, on these rocks and surveyed the length of whitewater before me, in an attempt to figure out how to avoid all those nasty little places where I don’t want to go but would inevitably end up.

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With age (64.98) came enough wisdom to postpone the trip from Saturday to Sunday: from cold and craptacular to warm and sunny.  We had eleven boats (from four states) running Chattoga 3 1/2 (Thrift's Ferry to Woodall Shoals) at 1.95 on the gauge.  The water was crystal clear and sparkly, and the group played its way down the river with no carnage and lots of fun.