Awesome trips ya'll. So, did anyone go to the Tallulah Gorge? Wes? Mark? Anyone?
Brent

The ducky paddler is BWA member Doug Begley. He lives in Lex and his phone number is 338-3608. I guess he learned the "standing up" paddling pose from some infamous BWA "old farts" like the ones he hangs out with. . . . . .

I hear that he picked up his Khorn corn after surf city on the trip last weekend. He put it in the back of his ducky to be his "Elkcorn corn flag" and yes, the chickens finished off the corn at Elkhorn Acres take-out.

I'll try and get him to the meeting tonite to sign autographs.

Mysefl, Wavey, Donny and the CrazyColumbian charged to the Cheoah this weekend to partake in the festivities. For me, I'm just glad to have a trip report to speak of since I've been out of the game for around three months. The last time I paddled was August. I missed the entire Gualey and Russell Fork seasons which was a tough task for me. I did however get through three months of studying, a PE Exam, getting engaged, moving her back from Texas and then another move ourselves, still in Cincy. I don't get my results back from the PE exam for a few months so now I wait.

In meantime though I get to enjoy my free time again. Going from no whitewater action at all for three months straight the Cheoah was a bit nerve racking for me, at least until we got about half way through. We stopped and took a stretch just upstream of the FS bridge and that did me some good. A quick stretch and I was feeling great when I jumped back in my prijon. My line at entrance was as good as ever for me. I entered right, went right to left behind the reef and above the rock and followed the tounge over to the quick boof at far river left, back to the right and down and didnt' even get my face wet. Then came BCF. I took the boof line but couldn't find that darn eddy rock everyone was telling me to look for and I was WAAAYYY to far left. I was last to go down and didn't get good speed up to the horizon line. I got a decent boof stroke but slammed my bow the rock shelf at the bottom and my foam bulkhead rapped around the aluminum bar that adjusts the support. I felt it in my hamstrings too as I slammed the river bottom. Not my best line but no harm no foul in this case.

The rest of the run was some sweet class four read and run boogie all the way to the confluence. What a super fun section of river. I just wish they released more than one day at a time.

I loved the right side line below BCF. I just wish I would have known we going to drop down a slide on the side of a six foot drop, I was didn't have much speed to make that turn at the bottom. What a rush!! I needed more speed and a better idea of what to expect but I'll have to try that line again.

After we took off the riv we scooted on over to the take a look at the Nanty Cascades which were flippin HUGE!! Running around 600 cfs or so we figured. We saw too guys punch down the short section and from our vantage point it didn't look too bad. However, no matter how much we felt we could handle it was not worth the risk of trip to the ER and missing work for four weeks with a broken collar bone or bummed up face or whatever. At least that's how I felt, especailly at that level.

Good to be back !!

Peace out,
Boles.

Wow.... what a weekend - Cheoah, Tallulah.... After a strong (for me anyway) Upper Gauley season, and early RF season ... wasn't feeling like I was on my game in the RF Gorge the last Sunday at 1150? The Cheoah, my old friend that has never been mean to me, and the Tallulah delivered a welcome wkend of redemption. What a great crew we had Sat ... and what fun! I loved that level and am eager to see the Cheoah with more water in it ... seems to just get more fun as the water goes up! BTW, I disagree with the observation that the upper run was low ... there's not that much that feeds into the Cheoah, Yellow being the primary feeder below the put in and was definitely not running 400 cfs! Based on my experience we were juicy from the top, maybe picking up a little extra from yellow (100 at most) bringing us up to the 1250 level. The group was tight, and clean all day.

BCF ... I was hoping to find that sweet spot on the right again with a better boof ... approaching the ledge, look for the right eddy line to line up... wait a minute ... where's the freakin eddy line? With the increased flow, the guide eddy line was pretty washed out .. (bad news) so then all you could do was look at the center rock that divides left (ledge) line from middle (creek ) line and guess where you were and where you needed to be ... b/c once you got to the ledge and actually saw where you were it was too late to change your line. The good news was, the extra water padded the rock at the bottom so that most of the ledge in the middle to right side was open ... I was further right than anyone else, but left of the sweet spot, had little boof b/c of the roll-off at the ledge with increased flow and barely tapped the rock at the base. Watching others run ... was quite entertaining as I'm pretty sure no two boats ran the same line! But all was good. So I ask Chief if he's interested in doing the Watauga line (far left channel) at the next rapid and I thought he said yes, so I peel out and go for it .. hoping the extra water would make it easier. Well, I don't know if it was easier or not .. I was pinballing with my best attempt at read and run .... pretty much like I did at 1000 ... so I got to the bottom and looking up expecting to see chief and there's JBob with a grin the size of Texas bouncing down the rocks behind me ... awesome JBob!

The next bit of entertainment came at Yard Sale ... note to future Cheoah groups: the eddy immediately below the bridge piling is only big enough for about 3 boats ... otherwise go one eddy down ... that eddy is much bigger and more stable! So the folks in back of our group... the ones that probably needed to catch the eddy the most couldn't fit so as soon as I saw that I peeled out and started down a right side run. What I saw when I peeled out was about 3 other boaters on 3 different lines in the middle of the rapid, none of which looked like a preferred line. I was laughing so hard at this spectacle (as Brent would say, "Another day of precision boating!") that I screwed up the normally fairly easy right line and dropped on the back deck of JBob who was coming through the right trough from the middle (the hard line). I barely missed pitoning JBob's right chest and I don't think he realized I landed on his boat! So all were well and we eddied out below for a well deserved laugh .. what a riot! Would give anything to have all that on video. BTW, having done both, IMO the easiest line on Yardsale (first drop) is just off the left shore, you just have to punch a couple of wave holes, but no diagonal seams or fancy pillow moves like on the right. The right isn't hard, just think a little harder than left. Middle is hardest, meat of the middle pourover hole and the gulch of the folding seam (JBob's line).

After the run some of us looked at the Cascades / Upper. The Cascades, particularly Horns, looked pretty beefy to me ... too beefy, but the good news is the near certain pin we carried around at Junkyard in May was way underwater so it was good to go! We also looked at Whiteoak .... the 28 footer above the confluence was V+ alright, but looked like with a little more water and maybe with one more beer we could have talked Donnie into probing it. OTOH, the Upper Nanty was primo .... and very well may be our destination this wkend with Brit / Ana if it's running the same.

Sun I met my old school boating buddy from Disgusta, Wayne Irby for my first run of Tallulah (Finally!!!!) at a juicy 700. Wayne is super skilled and smooth, with old school gear and boating style ... only paddles his old Overflow and has a spare under his house Really nice guy, and the kind of guy you want guiding you in IV+ water. After the steps and some eccentric leg training we arrived at the traffic jam at the launch platform. I thought the steps were shaking from other folks walking so I said to the guy in front of me "these steps are pretty shaky" and he said "no, that's your legs" and he was right! 593 steps with a creek boat ... the Tallulah is a total body workout. There's about a 20 ft pool (just upstream is a huge, beautiful waterfall) then you immediately launch into a IV+ rapid (The Last Step). It's a heck of a warmup! I watched a few launch, picked my entrance and line, dropped in did a couple of ferries and began to appreciate the power of Tallulah. I was pinballed between waves and rock pillows, did a little surf slide at the bottom and was out. Woo-hoo! A much easier and funner drop at Tanner's Boof then Oceana. All I could think of was the Nealy cartoon where the dude is looking at a rapid and says "Good God!" That is exactly what I said! It's like Niagra, or any other big hydro feature, to fully appreciate it's size and awesome power you need to stand in it's presence at 700. The Thing, spewing it's huge massive wall of heavy spray beyond the backwash of the hole at the bottom! Just awesome! One day I'm going to try it ... like maybe at 500 cfs, and maybe the middle line ... after I study it a lot more and become a better boater and someone tells me for the 100th time how to run it and talks me into it! While we were getting set to put in after the right carry (still class V), we saw the girl I shuttled up from the takeout getting roped out of the bottom hole ... ouch!

The Gauntlet was read and run IV+ with move or two around / through sticky holes that I mini surfed a couple then we were above Bridal. The hole on right at Bridal is epic. I think it sucks the leaves off of trees. The far left line is a long slide with a launch at the bottom that is easy and fun most importantly misses the hole. Wayne had to tell me all about his friend's multiple misadventures in the bottom hole right before we ran it! Had a great run there ... yee haw! More fun boogie rapids til we got to Lynch's Wrench. Wayne has boated the Tallulah a lot. He not only knows the main lines, but every other possible line that we sometimes went on that he likes better. At Lynch's, he likes to enter the top left into an eddy (very squirrely) , then punch a slide hole on the left of the big dividing rock for the big drop, ferry right to an eddy on the right shore above the second rapid below. There's waves / holes / funny water below the main drop to work through to get to the eddy. The top eddy was very swirly, and we were bouncing off of each other in circles while he told me about the rapid, then it looked like he was about to be sucked up into the hole above the eddy so I decided to just go to get out of his way. I made it through the funkyness to the right shore and eddied out behind a 5ft tall boulder and waited ... and waited ... and thought this is taking too long. Folks were scouting from the right as we ran it and no one was yelling, but I couldn't see anything over the boulder I was eddied behind ... didn't know whether to get out and check it out or wait ... bout that time I saw Wayne's boat float by ... oh s#%@, then his paddle, then Wayne. So I peeled out, knowing nothing about the rapid below and very happy to see Wayne make the next eddy while his boat and paddle got stuck in the next ledge right next to shore! A Tallulah miracle! I've never ever heard of Wayne swimming ... or thought it was possible so this had to be a hell of a story! After he fished out his gear he told me what happened ... his run went fine until he decided to be lazy and use low end of the nasty little pourover hole above my boulder / eddy to slow his approach and help turn his bow up to ferry into the eddy ... something many of us do all the time, but he overshot the move, and was pulled into the hole. Turns out this hole feeds right into a rock, where the meat of the hole was he though may be a bit undercut b/c the current was strong going to the right. He couldn't back out of the hole and couldn't go forward b/c of the shore rock. He worked it for a bit, finally flipped and his paddle blade got wedged into a crack so solid he was afraid he would break it if he tried to roll (ok, the old, I had to save my paddle excuse So he swam and thankfully was an uneventful one. Seeing Wayne swim, would be like seeing Brian, or Clay swim in Class IV ... truly drives home the old adage, we are all between swims... I offered this in comfort, but Wayne was clearly not happy about it He got over it though and our happy tour continued.

In the next big eddy we found a paddle ... we put it up on a rock, trying to make it more visible. Then Tit, Tat ... stopping to scout Tom's Brain Buster. Lower Toms' is gnarly, shallow, potential for some serious body carnage if you flip in / above it. So Wayne starts explaining his pinball move through the rapid to avoid the bottom right ... enter top left on a curved ledge / crease, eddy out, ferry to the right shore across the main flow, bounce off 2 small rocks, ferry left across a big wave and hit the left slot, or, broach on the big boulder dividing the channel and slide through on the left, avoiding the shallow gnar on the right. Wayne says they've stacked 3 boats broached against that boulder for fun ... interesting. While we were scouting a loan playboat washed down and wedges in the left side shallow rocks. We wait a few minutes, no chasers, no one in sight ... "that's freaky" I said. Two groups come through ... no one knows anything about the boat. Too weird... hoping someone wasn't boating alone... Other groups are bouncing straight through ... their lines look easier, but Wayne's bizarre creekish lines looked safer. I decided to try Wayne's route ... it was easier than it looked and was pretty cool actually.

The Road to Aintry was kind of interesting. Big slide type rapid, try to catch an eddy on the far left for fun, then peel and slide down the left side ... look for a boof rock at the bottom or go around either side ... oh and the hole above the last drop that you can't see until you are almost in it ... so everything was going great, I see the boof rock, I'm lining up and bam, I hit the hole ... no surf but a sudden stop, try to build up speed again, but couldn't - bam, hit the rock, slide over it, and ka-chunk ... piton! I can't believe it... my bow is stuck on a rock on the backside of the boof rock and I'm standing vertical, I mean, perfectly vertical and balanced. I look at Wayne in the eddy and he's looking at me like ... "how did he do that?" ... I'm thinking the same thing. These guys hanging out there are starting to get this excited "lets rescue him!" look on their faces and I wave them off and say "I'm fine, really". I was worried that someone would come from behind and knock me over on my head, so after a few hops I finally manage to hop the boat off the rock.

Paddlesnake ledge was a rapid I wish I had remembered from the AW page. You basically enter center heading to the left and boof / drop onto a curler and turn to ride it to the right. They call it a reverse Jawbone, but I jumped the curler too much and missed the fun of riding it. The 1 1/2 mile lake paddle seemed longer, but is shorter than Sect IV. After that is a pretty long almost a quarter mile I'm guessing back to the parking area ... again, the full body workout.

Yesterday morning I awoke stiff / sore from head to toe and pretty tired! The ER was not kind to me yesterday / last night so my recovery has been further postponed ... but the trip was well worth it! Thanks boating buds for another wkend of precision boating!

Wes