Hiwassee, TN

It’s amazing of fast the summer just slips away. Thinking about this summer’s paddling trips I realized that I haven’t paddled the Hiwassee all summer, so I got with some friends and we started paddling a trip. We all met a Web Brothers. The trip turned out to be a memorable one in more ways than one. All week the skies in the Atlanta area have been gray thanks to Fay. The sky was blue and the sun was warm in Tennessee and surprising the water was warm as well. After lunch I decided to play at lunch stop rapid trying to spin, yes I spinned, cool, ok that ones not so good, cool got another, oops I sideways, crap, brace, it not working, oh no I upside down! Now what, I need to roll up, setup and roll. Wow I’m up, my first combat roll in my Ammo.

GCA Tuck trip

Saturday 16, 2008 was yet again another beautiful today on the river.

Crossover challenge

Today I decided to pull out my Dagger Crossover to see if I could roll the thing. With boat loaded on top of my truck and paddles packed, I headed to Hard Labor Creek State Park. When I was pulling into the parking lot the fisherman where packing up, calling it a day. You sure can tell that the kids are back in School, no one was on the lake and only a handful at the beach. Lake Rutledge is only 275 Acres, I like the lake because of its size and because of this it limits the type of boats that can go on it. I paddled half of the lake and decided to pull into a swimming area, it’s a good place to practice rolls. I first tried rolling the boat with a 230 cm paddle, cool no problem. I practiced a few more and working up my courage, ok let’s try a 220 cm paddle. I practiced a few more, k do I really dare to try and 194 cm paddle. Ok here goes… Yes I did it, way to go. I stay awhile to practice some stokes. All in all I really like my Crossover again and I can’t wait to do some class II over night camping trips.

More information about Hard Labor Creek State Park –
http://gastateparks.org/info/hardlabor/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Labor_Creek_State_Park

Action Shot on the Tuck

This was the family day on the Tuck. I'm in the eddy watching my mom, making sure she makes it down the rapid.

Pigeon Run

Saturday a group of us was supposed to run the Pigeon. Saturday morning Robert got a phone call saying that the Pigeon was only going to have minimum release. So we all starting thinking, now what, should we go to the Ocoee or Nanty. After much discussion we decided to run the Pigeon anyway. On the way to the Pigeon I got another call from a bud saying that there was no release today, bummer. So we turn around and ran the Tuck. All in all I had a great time, working on ferries, eddies, combat rolls, offside roll and swimming rapids.

Sunday’s Nanty run with the boy and girl scouts. The group met at teaching eddy and a few of us decided to walk up to pyramid. I’m glad I did, I was able to complete a few spins in my kayak. After that we pretty much just ran the river. I exactly had fun just riding the wave trains. I can tell the different though when I don’t work the river, my Fall run was terrible, even though I didn’t flip.

Paddling the Gator infested Metro Hooch

Thursday Leif and I paddled the Metro hooch. We meet around 10 am, the sun was getting hot already. After unloading a walking down to the put-in I was ready to hit the water. The water looked clear so I rolled, just once. Man that felt good. After we passed I-285 the water started to change color, for the rest of the trip I can not see the bottom of the river bed and the river and a funny odor. All in all I had a good time, I tried to catch as many eddies as I could and I even tried to run a few rapids twice, there wasn’t a lot of play spots but I did manage to catch and few waves. I’m always amazed at how much wildlife that’s on the Metro Hooch, but I never did see the gator that the game and wildlife is trying the catch, maybe next time.

Another Fabulous Weekend

Saturday Patton’s to the Falls.
I had all intentions of trying to eddy-hop at Patton, but it turn out to be a no-go. When I was making my approach a kayak and raft flipped so I just ended up running the direct line. It turned out to be a good thing since the group I was with, one of us decided to swim. So campground rapids was my warm-up, I think I caught about 6 or 7 eddies. After that, I decided to catch the eddy at Pyramid. The group stayed at Delabar’s, we all worked on ferrying and S-turns. I nailed the eddy at Root Canal. So with all that I decided play at Whirlpool, I was able to get the eddy above Whirlpool and ferry across to the big eddy, I peeled out and tried a S-turn, yikes almost flipped and that was enough for me at Whirlpool. After that I attempted fate at Surfing Rapid, I was actually able to stay in the wave a few times. Very Kewel. The Bump, I’ll still a chicken, but working on it. The Falls, I almost didn’t make it in truckstop, but after sitting there awhile I was able to run The Falls clean. Great day.
Sunday on the Tuckaseigee, West Fork releases.
Sunday’s run on the Tuck was a family run. I’m trying to get my mother into kayaking. She purchased a Pyranha Master TG. So it was just the two of us paddling. It turned out to be a very pleasant day, weather was fabulous, water was cool and the company was great. All in all it was just a great day to be paddling.

Marvelous

This Thursday's run on the Nanty was completely marvelous. Just like last week it rained early in the morning making the river very foggy. I caught more eddies at the falls this time around and had a text book run at the falls.