TenneC Rendezvous, from my perspective
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:56 pm
The canoeists' rendezvous in Lenoir City was a terrific success, at least while I was there for the first few days; I'm sure it will continue to be so for the rest of the week. I am very grateful to Louie for setting it up and for his hospitality in setting us up with a free place to sleep -- with ample plumbing for a small mob -- in Lenoir City. Louie (Mike Lewis), by the way, for those of you who have not figgered it out from his online persona, is an absolutely outstanding human being and a terrific boater.
I left Winston-Salem at 4:00 PM Thursday, stopped for dinner at the Asiana Grand Buffet in Asheville, and cought up with Hizzoner Chris Kelly at the Rock Creek Campground at Nemo Bridge in the Obed-Emory Scenic Waterways at 10:30.
Friday morning we met Pat and Beth (our token kayaker) and Jack from North Carolina, and Rennie (the One-Legged Texan) from HoustonTX/LenoirCityTN and ran Clear Creek (Jett to Nemo) at about 250 cfs. Low, but completely boatable, and uneventful except for a couple of out-of-boat experiences by our new North Carolina friends. This was a scouting run for Chris to refresh his memory of the rapids and check for any unreported strainers, since he had earlier promised to lead a trip down this section of river on Saturday. From the takeout at Nemo we drove to Lenoir City, where the cream of the whitewater community (open boaters and C-boaters) were beginning to gather on Friday night.
Saturday, Chris organized (snrf, snrf, chuckle: "he sed 'organized'"!) our 17-boat (18-person) trip. We had paddlers from Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia on this one trip! Clear Creek was down to about 225 cfs, but was still entirely boatable, and carnage was... uhh... well, not completely absent, but minimal. Took us a long time to get that many boats down the creek, though, with three scoutable rapids in the early stages. Also on Saturday, a group went to the Ledges of the Tellico and another group went to the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Saturday night we all met up back at Louie's place and dined on the chili that Hizzoner prepared and on tamales and taquitos made by Louie's wife. Yum. Then we watched paddle porn.
Sunday we again split into three directions: the Big South Fork, the Nolichucky, and the Ledges of the Tellico again. This time I was the featured player, swimming at two of the Ledges of the Tellico before I got my act together and had good runs of Baby Falls, Diaper Wiper, and Jared's Knee. This was big group for such a small stream; 15 boats, including, this time, two token kayakers. The level was 1.23' (too bad the gauge doesn't report volume) and I gotta admit that we probably scratched up a lot of the rocks in the river, but nowhere was it so low that we had to get out of our boats -- not even the kayakers. Kelly and I took five others, including a German paddling-mag journalist named Falk, who had flown all the way from Germany for the event, for an additional several miles of the Middle Tellico, while the others drove back to Lenoir City. We seven had dinner at the hot-dog stand alongside the Lower Tellico, which is Hizzoner's custom when he runs the Tellico, and drove back to Lenoir City, where the consensus was that the Nolichucky would be the best run available for Monday. So Chris and I and Dan (from Boston) drove over there Sunday night so that we could sleep in late on Monday morning.
Monday morning the crowd from Lenoir City started rolling in around 10:30 AM. We loaded 9 boats and six people into Dan's truck and six boats and 12 people into mine, to drive 16 boaters, 15 boats, and 2 shuttle drivers to the put-in. The level was about 950 cfs (I can state from experience that the 'Chucky is boatable down to 500) and we had our 4th bright sunny day in a row. The only carnage I can think of all day long was a brief pin at On The Rocks and a swim by our tandem team at Railroad Wall (AKA Lost Cove). The wind came up around 4:00 PM, so the last hour on the river was pretty grim. Louie "Tom Sawyer'd" Craig (from Massachusetts) into test-driving Louie's little short Taureau. Louie paddled off into the sunset in Craig's light, fast Millbrook Composite boat (a Bazzoom or a Knocker or something like that) leaving Craig to fight the last mile-and-a-half in the little potato boat. Smooth move, Louie!
I headed home from our takeout in the Nolichucky Gorge Campground (always nice to see LD and LeeAnn, the managers, who are simply wonderful people as long as LD doesn't get the idea that you are trying to cheat him in any way) so someone else will have to fill in the continuing story of the "Ain't Louie Festival". I do know that several of 'em were planning to stay over at the Nolichucky Gorge CG and run the 'Chucky again Tuesday, at about 885 cfs.
I left Winston-Salem at 4:00 PM Thursday, stopped for dinner at the Asiana Grand Buffet in Asheville, and cought up with Hizzoner Chris Kelly at the Rock Creek Campground at Nemo Bridge in the Obed-Emory Scenic Waterways at 10:30.
Friday morning we met Pat and Beth (our token kayaker) and Jack from North Carolina, and Rennie (the One-Legged Texan) from HoustonTX/LenoirCityTN and ran Clear Creek (Jett to Nemo) at about 250 cfs. Low, but completely boatable, and uneventful except for a couple of out-of-boat experiences by our new North Carolina friends. This was a scouting run for Chris to refresh his memory of the rapids and check for any unreported strainers, since he had earlier promised to lead a trip down this section of river on Saturday. From the takeout at Nemo we drove to Lenoir City, where the cream of the whitewater community (open boaters and C-boaters) were beginning to gather on Friday night.
Saturday, Chris organized (snrf, snrf, chuckle: "he sed 'organized'"!) our 17-boat (18-person) trip. We had paddlers from Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia on this one trip! Clear Creek was down to about 225 cfs, but was still entirely boatable, and carnage was... uhh... well, not completely absent, but minimal. Took us a long time to get that many boats down the creek, though, with three scoutable rapids in the early stages. Also on Saturday, a group went to the Ledges of the Tellico and another group went to the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Saturday night we all met up back at Louie's place and dined on the chili that Hizzoner prepared and on tamales and taquitos made by Louie's wife. Yum. Then we watched paddle porn.
Sunday we again split into three directions: the Big South Fork, the Nolichucky, and the Ledges of the Tellico again. This time I was the featured player, swimming at two of the Ledges of the Tellico before I got my act together and had good runs of Baby Falls, Diaper Wiper, and Jared's Knee. This was big group for such a small stream; 15 boats, including, this time, two token kayakers. The level was 1.23' (too bad the gauge doesn't report volume) and I gotta admit that we probably scratched up a lot of the rocks in the river, but nowhere was it so low that we had to get out of our boats -- not even the kayakers. Kelly and I took five others, including a German paddling-mag journalist named Falk, who had flown all the way from Germany for the event, for an additional several miles of the Middle Tellico, while the others drove back to Lenoir City. We seven had dinner at the hot-dog stand alongside the Lower Tellico, which is Hizzoner's custom when he runs the Tellico, and drove back to Lenoir City, where the consensus was that the Nolichucky would be the best run available for Monday. So Chris and I and Dan (from Boston) drove over there Sunday night so that we could sleep in late on Monday morning.
Monday morning the crowd from Lenoir City started rolling in around 10:30 AM. We loaded 9 boats and six people into Dan's truck and six boats and 12 people into mine, to drive 16 boaters, 15 boats, and 2 shuttle drivers to the put-in. The level was about 950 cfs (I can state from experience that the 'Chucky is boatable down to 500) and we had our 4th bright sunny day in a row. The only carnage I can think of all day long was a brief pin at On The Rocks and a swim by our tandem team at Railroad Wall (AKA Lost Cove). The wind came up around 4:00 PM, so the last hour on the river was pretty grim. Louie "Tom Sawyer'd" Craig (from Massachusetts) into test-driving Louie's little short Taureau. Louie paddled off into the sunset in Craig's light, fast Millbrook Composite boat (a Bazzoom or a Knocker or something like that) leaving Craig to fight the last mile-and-a-half in the little potato boat. Smooth move, Louie!
I headed home from our takeout in the Nolichucky Gorge Campground (always nice to see LD and LeeAnn, the managers, who are simply wonderful people as long as LD doesn't get the idea that you are trying to cheat him in any way) so someone else will have to fill in the continuing story of the "Ain't Louie Festival". I do know that several of 'em were planning to stay over at the Nolichucky Gorge CG and run the 'Chucky again Tuesday, at about 885 cfs.