Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Not too sexy for an ELF Watauga

Saturday, 3/10/2007

It had been more than a week since the blessed rains of March 1st and the rivers of east Tennessee and western North Carolina were feeling it. Team SKB had an honorary member in from England who was eager for some Appalachian creekin and we did not want to disappoint. Unfortunately, the only options were looking like a -7" Wilson Creek, 1000 cfs Nolichucky, 3 to 4 hour drives for some marginal Plateau runs, or a 500-600 cfs Russell Fork that frankly sounded pretty nasty to us. Andy (our Appalachian englishman) mentions how sad it is that the Watauga isn't running since he was really hoping he might be able to show Stuart down his first Watauga trip and it gets the wheels rolling. Being from the Tri-Cities, we've all heard stories of how some of the ELF nuts claim the big W is runnable down to something like 80 cfs - so we start making some phone calls. After a couple of interviews, we decide to give it a go.

The Sexy Kayaking Beasts at Guys Ford


Stuart and his mentor, Andy C. (SKB for the day)



In hindsight, all we can say is that we're glad we did! Saturday was a beautiful day and, while the river lacked some punch, almost all of the main lines were runnable (including Stateline) and a great time was had by all. First lap was smooth - our first timer (Stuart) was all grins and big eyes as we kept blasting through one rapid after another. Hydro was boat scouted and smoothed by all.

Brian getting it done at Hydro


Stuart MegaRocking Hydro



We had a bit of excitement when the lead boater realized about halfway through Heavy Water/Anaconda that we were halfway into HW/Anaconda and started waving our newbie into the RL eddy at the bend - no problems though. At Stateline, Alan and Brian decided to fire up the falls while Andy and Stuart seal launched into photo/safety positions. Alan's line was clean but he went pretty deep, while Brian's boof was textbook and unphotographed (dead camera batteries). Brian explored the river left channel at Rewind/Boof Ledge and we do not recommend it.

Alan fires up Stateline Falls at 120 cfs




Lap 2 went much faster as we barely let at all till the bottom of Hydro. Stuart had a nice clutch roll in the midst of Split Decision. Brian had an even better one right above the big drop/hole in Heavy Water. Everyone ran the falls on the second lap and good landings were had by all!


The group's consensus was that the Watauga at 120cfs felt alot like a -6" Wilson Creek but with much more excitement per mile. What a great way to rack up 1012 total vertical feet!


SKB's out.

No comments: