Something Not-So-Creeky
| River: | Nolichucky |
| Skill: | Intermediate+/Advanced |
| Trip Date: | 04/21/2018 |
Scheduling a creeking trip even a few weeks in advance is always going to be a roll of the dice, but I hoped that fortune would favor the bold as I announced my intentions to paddle some natural flow creeks on one of my rare spring weekends off. Despite the best efforts of rain dances, it became clear to me about ten days out that the forecast wasn't going to work in my favor. The big rains fell in the mountains on the Sunday before the trip, and by the following weekend the creeks had dropped out. So, having missed the chance to spend a weekend on Wilson Creek with good flow by about two days, it was time to make the call that the trip billed as "Something Creeky" would instead be headed to the Nolichucky. Though there had been a good amount of interest when I posted the trip a few weeks ago, most of that had fizzled out as the weekend approached and we would only end up with three paddlers each day.
The Nolichucky still had a lot of water in it and bore little resemblance to a creek. After topping out at 15,000 cfs on Monday, the Noli dropped to 2,250 cfs on Saturday and 2,000 cfs on Sunday. These were fantastic levels but it has been years since I had been on this river with that much water.
On Saturday, Larry Ausley and I were joined by Ryan Peabody, who took on the bigger flows in his playboat. It was a beautiful 70 degree day with the Nolichucky running just about as clear blue as I've ever seen it. After paddling the Noli at lower levels over the past few years, Entrance rapid was a nice wakeup to the pushier water we'd expect below. One of the nice things about the higher flow is that it made a lot of the boogie water in bewteen the rapids more fun than usual. We cruised on down the river and made it through the biggest rapids without incident. By the time we got to Hole-in-the-Wall, we realized that we were going to get back to camp very early and have a lot of time to kill that afternoon. I think we saw one raft on the river all day – it felt like cheating to have the river all to ourselves on such a spectacular day, and it always amazes me how often I go out to the Nolichucky and have this feeling.
Though the idea of a second lap on the Noli was tempting (shuttle aside), we decided to fight gravity rather than use it. Our shuttle driver on the way to the put in had mentioned a nice hike along a ridge going southbound on the AT from Uncle Johnny's Hostel. So we traded our river booties for hiking boots and headed up the switchbacks. After a nice climb, the trail offers some awesome views of the Nolichucky looking back towards the campground. It was hard to imagine that after 40+ days on the Noli, this is the first time I had seen it from this vantage point.
On Sunday, Ryan had to leave early to pick up a boat, but we were happy to be joined by Martha Mount all the way from her new home in Asheville. There were two other groups putting on at just about the same time, but we mostly got ahead of them and didn't see them again once we got past Jaws. We did see some creepy dolls posed in a branch just downstream of Hole-in-the-Wall (Noli Chucky?). Sunday was about ten degrees cooler than Saturday and overcast and breezy, but still a beautiful day on a beautiful river. It seemed very appropriate to be celebrating Earth Day out on the Nolichucky.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable weekend with good weather and great water levels. And it's always fun to paddle with Larry, Martha, and Ryan. So even though the creeking plan didn't work out so well, plan B was a mighty fine time.