Upper Nantahala
| River: | Nantahala |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 09/29/2012 |
Upper Nantahala Sep 29-30th, 2012.
Photo's by Morgan Randall at this location :-
https://plus.google.com/photos/117777209934735506485/albums/5796700094943723425
This weekend was the first ever recreational release of the Upper and Cascades section of the Nantahala river. A historic day. Flow studies in accordance with the relicensing of the dam were conducted approximately a decade ago; with users participating in running the river at different levels. The data from that study was used to set the river levels for this weekend's releases. While these sections of the river run occasionally after a heavy period of local rain; they can be tough to catch. I have paddled the Upper a mere two times prior to this weekend. The Cascades requires less water and runs more often.
This was an interesting trip. We had little beta to go on for logistics, but keeping up with the AW press releases, and gaining further info at the NOC on Friday afternoon, and yet more at Endless Rivers Saturday morning, we figured out the info we needed to put the trip in place.
What we found out – you had to park in the grassy field adjacent to the USFS put in (just upstream of Pattons Run) to catch the shuttle. The shuttle cost was free. The river cost was free (providing you did not go onto the regular Nantahala). The NOC ran shuttles from the field up to the cascades and the upper nantahala, using a combination of large busses, strapping the boats to the roof of the busses, and a specially built trailer for transporting kayaks. Endless Rivers supplied a shuttle for transporting boaters who wanted to do laps on the Cascades.
While I was anticipating 16 people for Saturday, and 17 for Sunday, the number of people that showed up was much smaller. Several people decided to run their own trip on the Cascades or the Upper; some decided that they would run the Nantahala instead, others didn't show at all.
Saturday – run 1 :- 300 cfs
Ian Pond, Morgan Randall, Paul Scrutton, Phillip Ashliman (SUP), Tripp Culbreth
Saturday's 1st run went smooth; in the first few mins, I ran into Phillip Ashliman a friend of mine from the surf-kayaking world and he opted to join us paddling down the river on his plastic SUP. Philip portaged some of the bigger drops, provided us some good entertainment on the top portion of the run and towards the end of the trip was looking pretty smooth.
About 1/2 way down the river, there is a sizable long rapid, with a micro-creek alternative route on the left. Morgan dropped into the micro-creek, I followed. It was a fun slightly steeper section, easily navigable.
Saturday – run 2 :- 300 cfs
Elizabeth Gardner, Ian Pond, Paul Scrutton, Mordan Randall.
After a short refueling break in the grassy-field, allowing us time for Elizabeth to join us, and Tripp to take over child-care duties, we set off with 4 paddlers.
Morgan elected to paddle the Cascades and after running them with some people he met down by the river, he caught up with us. He told us that the group 'bombed it' with little beta, and he'd flipped a total of 4 times during the run. He mentioned that he missed the Horns on the first rapid, and that it was survivable running it that way.
On this trip, Ian was starting to feel tired, and swam in one rapid, about 2/3's down the river losing his paddle. We looked up and down the river and were unable to locate it. Ian took off at this point and was able to get a ride from a kindly driver who stopped to see what was going on with us. Orange Werner if you come by it; and he said that his name / phone number was written on it.
At some point in the day, we heard that a person had gone under the angled log on the right side of the river just upstream from the 'bridge' rapid. This rapid was one of the steeper drops on the river. Charles Waldbridge has an excellent detailed write-up of this accident on boatertalk. Thankfully the person was pulled out, and resucitated successfully.
Sunday – run 1 :- 425 cfs
Dan Cubbage, Kathryn McNeal, Vince Davis, Morgan Randell, Ian Pond, Tripp Culbreth, Paul Scrutton
Dan, Kathryn and Vince met up with us on Sunday. Sunday's run 1 went solidly well. Ian was sporting a new paddle. He swam at bridge rapid but held onto the paddle good this time.
On one of the runs (I don't recall which now), we had a little bit of mini carnage – this was the longer rapid/micro-creek. I hit a submerged branch towards the end of the rapid on the main route, which flipped my boat. When I rolled up, Morgan had flipped (probably on the same obstruction), and had lost his paddle. After a few tries, he was able to make a hand-roll, and I handed him back his paddle.
Sunday – run 2 :- 425 cfs
Vince Davis, Morgan Randell, Paul Scrutton, Elizabeth Gardner.
Ian, Dan and Kathryn decided to hit the road. Vince was happy to take a second run, which gave us 4 people for run #2. On this run, we saw a boat pinned under an angled log on the left side of the river, on one of the longer rapids about 2/3's the way down with the rock-wall on river left. The swimmer had exited their boat above this log, and the boat had floated down and pinned itself. Nothing else interesting to report on this run.
We did contemplate trying to fit in a 3rd run on Sunday (Rick Steeves Style), but backed off when we realized that we'd hit the 250 cfs release level that started at 3pm.
All in all a great weekend. This has to be one of my favourite rivers. The shuttle service worked flawlessly. On both days, we filled in questionaires at the end of our runs, giving feedback on our experiences.