Friday night, I splintered off from Karl?s Tellico O.C.T. to wage my first campaign in the Tallulah Gorge. I drove to Chan and Casey Jones? parents? in Franklin, N.C. to stay the night and learn how to duct tape weld a cracked kayak (not mine). Saturday, Chan, Casey, and I linked up with Wayne Dicker and Laura to run the gorge.
With their help, my first bid on this river proved successful. I only had two rolls and no swims. It is the most beautiful and visually impressive river I have ever boated and it is now my new favorite! (I don?t know what my old favorite was but do know that this is now my new one.) The drops actually look like something out of paddle porn. I am already planning to go back for the November releases.
It is a bit harder than the Upper Yough and is definitely steeper. The rapids are about as long as the ones on the Upper Yough with maybe a little more of a pool in between. Bring your boof, your break down boof (in case you loose your regular boof), and your read and run skills because all you?ll see is about the first move or two from your leader before he disappears.
The river starts with a MAJOR carry down 592 steps 300 feet into the gorge. You need to factor this in when running this river ? carrying 50+ pounds of creek boating goodness down 20+ stories in an unzipped drysuit while your wondering if you?ll be alive at the end of the day is a tough way to start a IV/V creek run.
The put in is gorgeous. You definitely know you are in a steep gorge. Just upstream, the Tallulah explodes though a 20 foot wide slot in the cliff wall to form a 40 foot waterfall.
After marveling at the upstream falls, I was relieved (not) to see that the Tallulah provided a 10 yard warm up pool with two class II ferry moves to practice in before the first rapid, Last Step (IV+). This was where I had my first roll. Wayne said it was 50-50 for first timers to make it through upright. After my third attempt righted my boat, I realized I had picked the wrong 50.
The next rapid, Tanners Launch, comes in short order. It is intimidating but is a SWEET boof.
Next is Oceana. The pictures do not do this one justice. The left side line is teensy. Laura ran it. Chan seal launched down the left side on the dry rock and STILL almost hit the Thing. Wayne and Casey carried on the right. I started carrying on the right, then slipped and fell and started sliding down the rock with my boat and paddle still in hand. The story of the guy who was carrying and slipped and fell in the rapid and got turned into hamburger flashed through my head. After about a 15 foot free slide, I was able to self arrest on a small rock lip and recover.
As I got in my boat at the bottom of Oceana, I realized that my legs were no longer quivering from the lactic acid built up from the stairs but from adrenaline. I would have a high high for the rest of the run all the way through to getting gas before driving over to Thunder Rock. After that, I had an adrenaline induced hang over and accompanying headache.
Next up was the Gauntlet (IV+). This was my favorite rapid. It was long, fast, read and run. It was like a pushier, longer, version of Devil?s Kitche on the Maury with no eddies. Like most rapids on this run, if you convinced yourself you could do it, you would and it was fun. If you got all up tight, well, bad things happened. A short, moving pool at the bottom of this one that dropped into Bridal Veil provides the proper motivation for one to finish upright and in their boat.
Bridal Veil is easy but consequential. If you do it right, you get going like eightyeleven billion miles an hour down the slide and just automatically skip off the rock at the bottom over the hole. I did it right and can say that feeling your boat start to skip as you?re going eightyeleven billion miles an hour over a rock with an inch of water flowing over it is disconcerting. It was around here that I started asking, ?How much further??
Next up is Zoom Flume. Before reading further, you really should look at the picture of this one on AW:
I got hung up at the entrance and ran it backwards. Running a four foot wide, 100 foot long slot for the first time backwards is almost as disconcerting as feeling your boat start to skip as you?re going eightyeleven billion miles an hour over a rock with an inch of water flowing over it. I knew all that backsurf and backferry practice would come in handy some day. I will never complain about running Rewind on the Watauga backwards again.
After that, it?s just a blur of a river chock a block full of blind drops and boofs and all the other good stuff that gets the ?+? behind the IV on this one.
All a blur, that is, except for The Road to Aintry (IV) which I remember rather clearly. It is a long slide with a hole about three quarters of the way down that flipped me in such a way that the last thing I saw was the exposed part of the rock that I was supposed to boof off of with my boat but now would boof off of with my helmet. Fortunately, I rolled up. Unfortunatel, I did so in such that the next thing I saw was the big hole that I was supposed to boof over but was now dropping into sideways. ?Yikes!? was not the explicative I used but will have to suffice for this forum. Miraculously, I just put in a hard draw and came right out of the hole. I don?t know how it happened and don?t really care.
The power house came up and then the last rapid and then, *poof* the lake. I was at the lake! Wayne gave me a high five and we started paddling out.
It was over and I was alive. I was more than alive. I FELT alive.
As I started flirting with Laura and thinking of beers at the convenience store, I realized I was no longer gripped. That is until Casey paddled over and said, ?Hey Dave, great job today! You want to run the Green Narrows with us this summer? If I do it this summer, I?ll be the second youngest guy to run it! What about another lap on this one? Me and Chan are going to try to get in two more runs before they turn the water off today!?
?Uh, no dude.? was my reply.
And, yes, Alicia, I got your towel.
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YA, DAVE ON THE NARROWS, this summer!!! What next, lower Meadow???
