Hiwassee, Tennessee, US
|
|
1. Appalachia Dam to Appalachia Powerhouse (Dries)
| Usual Difficulty |
III-IV (for normal flows) |
| Length |
4.8 Miles |
| Avg. Gradient |
32 fpm |
| Max Gradient |
70 fpm |
First Rapid, Drys
First Rapid, DrysPhoto of Brad Roberts by Kevin Miller taken 05/17/03 @ 1000+ cfs
River Description
From the Hwy 68 access, the first three and a half miles are extremely overgrown with trees and
vines. Its all flatwater. At high flows this area could be lethal and is the textbook definition of
a strainer. DO NOT PUT IN AT THE HWY 68 BRIDGE. I REPEAT DO NOT PUT IN AT THE HWY 68 BRIDGE OR THE
DAM. ALL YOU WILL GET ARE MILES OF STRAINERS TILL THE NEXT ACCESS POINT.
After the Turtletown Creek confluence there are still some trees in the river but nothing that
obscures boating. The river opens up at this point.
There is an alternate and probably preferred put in almost at the Turtletown Creek confluence.
(Remember DO NOT PUT IN AT THE HWY 68 BRIDGE.)
So lets say it loudly, there is no good reason to boat the stretch of the Hiawassee between
Apalachia Dam and Turtletown Creek. There are no rapids. You will be boating 3.5 miles thru a
forest of trees, vines, strainers and rootballs. Use the Turtletown Creek access. Its also a much
shorter shuttle.
From Turtletown Creek to the Apalachia Powerhouse is 5.7 miles at an average of 40 fpm. Using the
Turtletown put-in makes for an 8.5 mile shuttle, all on dirt roads. Putting in at the Hwy 68 bridge
is a 9.2 mile run with a 17 mile shuttle to the Apalachia Powerhouse, 11 of those miles on dirt
roads. Be aware the roads can get rather muddy after a lot of rain.
When we ran the Hiwassee in May of 2003 we were able to take out on river left at the appalachia
powerhouse. There was a small parking area for hikers and fishermen. Reports from Feb. 2004 say
that TVA does not allow parking any more at the powerhouse.
Approximately one mile from Turtletown creek marks the start of the rapids. The river begins with a
class IV or III series of ledges and shoals. The difficulty of the rapids is partially the choice
of the boater.
More fun rapids follow downstream. The recovery pools are quite large between almost all of the
drops.
The stretch marked on the topo maps as the narrows has some suprisingly boily funny water.
Recent flow example
|
DATE
|
HEADWATER ELEVATION
|
TURBINE DISCHARGE
|
TOTAL DISCHARGE
|
RIVER FLOW
|
DAY
|
|
05/13/03
|
1275.90
|
2559
|
6622
|
4063
|
t
|
|
05/14/03
|
1276.71
|
2552
|
6604
|
4052
|
w
|
|
05/15/03
|
1276.62
|
2560
|
6477
|
3917
|
t
|
|
05/16/03
|
1277.14
|
2555
|
5153
|
2598
|
f
|
|
05/17/03
|
1277.69
|
2536
|
3542
|
1006
|
s
|
|
05/18/03
|
1277.16
|
2529
|
3534
|
1005
|
s
|
|
05/19/03
|
1279.04
|
2525
|
3007
|
482
|
m
|
StreamTeam Status: Not Verified
Last Updated: 2004-12-29 23:18:33
Hiawassee Dries - Trees
Eric Paysen on Hiawassee Dries
Will Reeves on Hiawassee Dries
2nd Rapid on the Drys
Wave train on the drys
User Comments
is working on the water diversion tube there. Due to their construction equipment and scafolding,
they are locking the gate at 5pm in the evenings when they go home from work so don't get locked
in. They said the gate would be wide open all the time once their construction is done.
boils in the Narrows were unlike any I've ever seen before. Hollywood Bowl is a long, farily
complex rapid with a potentially nasty ending. The next rapid produced a swimmer. Those are by far
the two biggest rapids on the run. Everything else was III-III+ at 2300 cfs (flow in the dries, the
powerplant was broken down and offline) It looks like there is a bridge over the river just below
the Appalachia Powerhouse on the USGS topos on this page. There is a bridge, but it's only a foot
bridge - no cars. The gate down to the powerhouse (river left) was open - we parked there and took
out without incident. Using the put-in for the Lower (traditional) Hiwassie makes for a very long
shuttle, but it sounds like you may not have a choice depending on what kind of mood the
gate-keepers are in.
lead to quite a bit of weaving through a flooded forest. After that, the river opened up into some
class II/III boogie water until Hollywood Bowl. I would advise boaters to scout this one as it is
definitly full on Class IV. There are two possible routes. I chose the far left option because it
looked the least sketchy and ended up getting windowshaded a good bit in the hole. Before I could
roll back up I got my head busted by an undercut rock and had to get stiches later. I was in a
playboat and something bigger would probably be fine but watch out on that one. After that there
were probably another three or four miles of boogie including the awesome sight of paddling through
the narrows. I would recommend this seldom run adventure to anyone but I would advise you to use
caution. Some of the rapids out there are long and complex and especially on Hollywood Bowl or the
lead in a swim could be bad. I hope this helps!
the public parking lot near the power plant.
TAKE-OUT. We tried to use river left, but the road was gated before the final turn to the plant
below. We sent two people down to see if they wouldn't mind us parking there. They were less then
pleased to see us there at all, much less park. Also, after a rain, the FS road is very muddy and
almost impassible in spots. This makes the river left take-out a NO GO! Use the regular Hiwassee
put-in on river right as your take-out. I would also suggest, if there has been a recent rain,
avoiding the FS roads AS much as possible and taking the very long shuttle around the mountain.
Again, if I havn't made myself clear. There is NO TAKE-OUT ON RIVER LEFT.
easier than the Ocoee with fewer rapids and had plenty of trees. The rapids were not huge and
certainly had nothing of Gauly stature or even resembled the Grand Canyon. I thought it was a fun
class III run with some alternate class IV lines in certain drops. I agree with the posting that
this is a one or twice in a boating career run, because other things are running. I have seen this
run with water in it probably 6-12 times in a decade plus boating career.
5000 cfs. This made for some fun whitewater. We made the mistake of putting in at the TN 68 picnic
area. This lead to three miles of ducking thru and under branches vines, surfing off rootball
pillows, and finding the occasional dead end of trees. Its was kinda neat for a bit, then got
really old going thru all of the trees. Next time I'm using the Turtletown put-in.<br>
<br>
Finally we came to the first drop. A riverwide falls of sorts. Its not really a vertical falls, but
a really wide broken ledge with a number of routes, and a couple of strong holes to be avoided.
This was best scouted from the center rocks. We ran the right of center lines. There was a cool
boof on the bottom right. There was also a hero line on the left thru a solid hole.<br>
Below this was a solid class three wavetrain with a few hidden holes. Then a cool rapid with a big
hole at the top, a narrow channel at the bottom, and moving van sized boulder in midstream. From
above it was scary looking, and with a bit more water would turn into a massive riverwide hole.
After this things calmed down for a bit. Lots of class 2+ boogie water, kind of like the upper
ocoee above the olympic course. Then we came to the quarter mile of rapids that was full of the
boiling, percolating water...very cool stuff. Textbook Neeley style funny water that tried to
squirt my tornado a few times. After this was a long wave train on the right with a lot of good
surfing.<br>
<br>
The last big rapid is marked by an island mid stream. The hero line is on the right, but one in our
group spent some time in an undercut on that side. The right line was still a strong class 3/4
reminicent of double Z on the new.<br>
<br>
All in all a cool run, with some of the best big water rapids in the SE this side of west virginia.
Most of the ten big rapids are better than anything found on the ocoee.
Forum: BoaterTalk<br>
Date: May 17 2003, 3:53 GMT<br>
From: oletncreek<br>
<br>
Tn area has just last week had a 30 yr flood so chk AWA page on Upper Hiwassee and dam was ripping.
This is a drys section like on the NEW River in WVA(water bypasses stream bed in a pipe).I had run
this section in the 90's a few times but never this BIG!(FRIDAY)! The first big rapid I call
Hollywood Bowl has a big ledge drop hole @ the bottom w/ alot on pullover holes on the horseshoe
shaped ledges as they drop down. We found a rock eddy to get out an scout @ top in the middle below
an island. The must make moves worked for me but my less experienced friend washed over a pullover
and then dead right into the hole @ bottom. His sub7 backendered up and flipped and he swam in the
long wave train. I picked my way around and cheated the bottom hole in the woods river right so I
could chase his bod and boat.After recovery the rest of the run is boat scoutable and the shore is
in the trees anyway so no shore to walk on. Unlike the regular Hiwassee this section squeezes down
from 100yrs wide to less than 20yrds in some rapids so all kinds of boils and funny water swirling
around. Cool but scary like the bottom of rapids on the GRAND CANYON. A section called the NARROWS
has walls on both sides and very funny water w/ a hole to trick by.<br>
By all means run this section - avoid HELLHOLE and see a new run w/ big water that only happens
every 30 years. The OCOEE and such will be there all summer!<br>
Oh the main pain is the shuttle- LONG! We had my girlfriend run shuttle so we didn't have to go
back for truck.The forest service road off hwy 30 towards Ocoee to Lost creek campground is the
most direct route but the 17 miles took 1 1/2 hr to run from bottom to top. You can go around to
Ocoee-turtletown but very long.<br>
<br>
<br>
at the flow under the TN Hwy 68 bridge (or Czech the TVA site to see if the Appalachia dam is
spilling). Do not put in at the dam or Hwy 68 since you'll be boat-bushwhacking class I or II for
many miles. The best put-in is off the USFS road that runs between Turtletown and Reliance (TN). In
Turtletown follow the USFS signs that direct you to Appalachia Powerhouse and Big Lost Creek
campground. The put-in will be the point that you first come down to the river. Be sure to hike up
the railroad tracks for 1/4 mile for the first good rapid. The take-out will be the Appalachia
Powerhouse (follow signs). The rapids are Ocoee-like but not as numerous. Of course there have been
some high flows lately--15K last Thursday--so make sure you are comfortable on the Ocoee at similar
levels. One place of note is called The Narrows--a wall of broken potholes. Although not a
challenging rapid, the strange currents through there make it interesting.<br>
<br>
It runs more often than the once in ten years you mention; I'd say a half dozen or so times a year
after heavy winter rains. It's a run you'll do once or twice then move on to other things when the
conditions are such that it's up. Other creeks in the area are Coker, Turtletown, Big Lost Creek,
and Wolf Creek.<br>
<br>
Also, it's also the only other location--the Ocoee being the other--where the rare Ruthie's Golden
Aster is found.<br>
<br>
Hope this helps.<br>
<br>
Gomer<br>
<br>