Spring FB9 Paddle
| River: | French Broad |
| Skill: | Novice+/Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 04/30/2024 |
It was a gorgeous spring day, with a flow of ~1900 cfs, and I must admit that I was a little nervous. Having scheduled a paddling trip on the same day and section as the Battle of the Broad mass-start race, I was catastrophizing a scenario where we would yard-sale in a choke point, bedlam would unfold, and perhaps we’d be renamed the “Carolina Carnage Club”, or simply “The River Turds”. River Turds, or RTs, as a local fisherman at the take-out enthusiastically informed me, are what the locals call those who float the river, but do not fish :).
My concerns proved baseless. We had a nice cruise down river. The racers passed us in Turtle Rock rapid; a great place to catch an eddy and heckle! It was a PFD for two of us. The S-Turn/Pillow complex claimed a few swimmers ( and a paddle ), but we set out with 11, and returned with 11. Everyone paddled well, and left the river smiling.
Afterwards a few of us went to Hotsprings for beer and burritos, at which point Greg Moon realized he was without his iPhone. With the help of Find-My-Apple, he followed the phone’s journey from the Stackhouse takeout, to a gas station in Marshall, ( where it remained for some time ), and finally to a property in West Asheville. Fearing the phone had been stolen, perhaps by a disgruntled fisherman, Greg texted and called the phone to no avail, offering a reward for it’s return. Receiving no reply, he and Dan Gosner conspired to visit the house on the way home, but what would they do once they arrived? Who lived there? Should they arm themselves with paddles just in case? They decided that checking the Buncombe County GIS records might reveal some clues. It turns out the house belonged to a Joe Mount, one of the paddlers on our trip! The phone had been misplaced during the shuttle drive, and retrieving it was but a trip to West Asheville. The long pause in Marshall however, remains a mystery.
Paddlers: Mark Holmberg, Charles Locket, Bill Szostack, Greg Moon, Dan Gosner, Joe Briscoe, Joe Mount, Anna Ploghoft, Dave Johnson, Les Hurrelbrink, Mitch Engel