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The following is a series of trip reports that I wrote for my southeast trip... don't read them all at once. save some for later

Special thanks to "He-who-shall-not-be-named",Alex, Richard, Dooley, Eli, and the rest of the GDI that helped Wayne and I have a great time in the southeast.


Part 1 of 3


18 inches of white in the Smokey Mountains, with rain coming to melt all the snow…and any real boater would know, that it’s time to go and hit the flow. Ya know?

Wayne and I left on Wednesday and drove 11 hours to Lenoir City, TN. First priority was to meet up with Richard at Mohawk Canoes to talk some canoeing and pick up some boats. We arrived at the almighty SwimmingMexican’s house around 11pm(Wed night), got some sleep, and headed to Chattanooga the next morning. Richard got me going with a new purple Maxim, and a slick Viper 11 – and topped it off by takin us out to get some sweet sweet Mexican food – awesome.
We stayed at the house of “he-who-shall-not-be-named” on Thursday night. He talks about the ‘good old days’ all night long. I am intrigued, as these are some pretty wild stories. But I can’t help to think that he’s making them up, as he’s never raced in the Green Race….so if he was as badass as he say he was…how come no Green Race in all these years? ....for the record, the good ole days are still happening.

Anyways… The next day 16 or so GDI, including myself and Wayne, headed over to do a low water Ocoee-run. This was to be my first day in the Maxim. Oh baby. I put in somewhere in the Olympic section, hop in my boat and start ferrying back and forth above the rapid. The boat is real loose…but I feel as though I can handle it’s high performance…so its go time! I take off down the first drop…stroke stoke…FLIP! Roll. Oh man…I’ve got some work to do to get comfortable in this boat. To top it off, I can’t get my feet under the footpegs like I normally do, and my ankles hurt from being ‘toe forward’…so I kept my feet flat and out of the footpegs, thinking…well if I flip, it’s an autoswim…but I’m done flipping for the day!....WRONG. I swim 3 times on the low water Ocoee. Embarrassing…Wayne paddled the Viper 11…and probably did better than I did.

When I got back to the car “he-who-shall-not-be-named” had already taken off w/ someone else, even tho we came down in the same car. He is upset – he expected a much better performanace (me too)…as he’s been telling everyone that he has foreseen the prophecy of Eddy McGnarlz. “On the 5th day, of the 11th month of the 11th year of the 2nd millennium …Canoeing as we know it…Will be Reborn. The day the world's gnarlyest openboaters come together, where the summation of individuals is bigger than any one person”

Part 2 of 3

For New Years Eve, Wayne and I were lucky enough to be invited by Alex to party at his Mexican in-laws. While there were some language barriers, Tequila and coke had everyone in a good mood, as we waited for the New Year. I had a great time… I wake up the next morning on “he-who-shall-not-be-named” couch, with my boots and hat still on. Of Course, Eddy McGnarlz doesn’t get hangovers…and its time to do some paddling.

The next day we headed to the Tellico…it’s been pouring all night and morning. Drainage ditches are starting to look gnarly. The Tellico is too big to run, so the GDI head over to Citico, which is juicing, but doesn’t look too unreasonable… So a bunch of us put on. Joe and Tony wuss out, even after driving 15 hrs to get here. “He-who-shall-not-be-named” also lets his girly side get the best of him, and decides not to paddle. In hindsight they probably made the “safe” and “responsible” decision.

Regardless…10 or so brave warriors (including 2 female in yaks) put on the extremely pushy water of Citico. The run quickly got serious, and turned into a "everyone for themselves FreeForAll". People swimming left and right, boats were floating downstream, and no one was even contemplating doing anything about it…as it was survival mode. Full-on-Gnarlz. Our group of 10 started dropping like flys, and people were walking off left and right. I finally walked off after I flipped, rolled, and ran 200yards backwards out of control on continuous class IV+ before finally getting to an eddy.

Fur-trading Phil and Surfin Shawn are the only remaining Open-boaters; all 3 skirt wearers remain…imagine that (mad props to the two ladies on the water that day). The almost unavoidable completely Lethal hole in “Pigs in Space” caused the rest to walk-off. All 10 that put on demonstrated high levels of both courage and stupidity. The river wins this day. I’d also like to point out that Scott Curtis walked-off before I did, and swam, whereas, I (wielder of a bombproof roll) did not swim...at least not on that day.

The night culminates with Alex, Joe, Tony, and Wayne…chillin out, eatin Pizza, and drinkin Golden Monkeys…how every night should end...the next day can be summed up in two words..."SANNNNNN TEEEEEELLLAAAAA"

Part 3 of 3


“SAN TEEHLA”

I have heard rumors and whispers from Joe of a crazy Southeast Creeking run, by the name of San Teehla. “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” has spoken very highly of the run…and water was flowing… Me, Wayne, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”, and Fur-Trader set off to Hardees to meet one of my heroes…Dooley Tombras. While we were waiting, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” managed to talk a lone oriental kayaker from Illinois, with a playboat, and virtually no creeking experience into running Class V 400FPM San Teehla with us. To ““He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” credit…his rational made sense…”San Teehla with the 5 of us is way better, than him putting on the Tellico at 4.6ft. And the percentage of two asian kayakers dying back to back is virtually zero”...He’s right…that’s never happened. So the six of us head off to San Teehla.

As we are driving, we just keep going higher and higher… Mountain peaks are poking up through the dense fog…this day has a “FullGnarlz” feeling to it already. It seems even more FullGnarlz as all stumbled down a very steep, boulder choked, low running tributary for a good ½ mile. We finally get to the creek…it’s very steep. It’s go time…

On the first drop, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” got pushed under a slightly undercut rock and flips. The same thing happens to Fur-Trader. On the same drop, I managed to completely pin the Viper 11 underwater. Wayne got the rope out, and we worked the boat out of the Pin...time to push on. Dooley leads the crew almost all day, and it becomes obvious to me than Dooley is a surgeon on the water. “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” also seems to be in his element. FurTrading Phil and I made it work…but not all that smooth… well I can’t really speak for Furtrader, only he knows how he did, as I was focused on dodging rocks, and avoiding pins. We were lucky to have such a strong crew. Kayaking Kim was able to jump in and support the group as well. All-in-all, the run went well, and was an eye opening experience. I also got to see Dooley swim at the last drop…which proves that he is in fact human, despite what I still believe…that he is a Cyborg Canoeist, sent from another planet, to Creek and Destroy.

The night ended with hanging out with “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”, Tony, Joe, and Wayne….and Golden Monkeys. After spending 4 days at his hous, It quickly became obvious that “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named” is pretty freakin funny, and a personality in the canoeing world that I believe to be Priceless. A guy whose been running the sht in a canoe, since the beginning, and was willing to take in two Yankees for 4 days, while his wife is sick…yet he’s shunned from the Cboat world…. I don’t get it…Louie…if you can read this from Cboat heaven…Thank you so much for hooking us up the way you did, entertaining us, and runnin the gnar with us. The trip wouldn’t have happened the way it did without u. So for that… I am grateful…even though u stole my hood. U sob. PS please don't take my jabbing serious. cuz I'm just messin with u, like u'd mess with me, or anyone else.

Nice trip report Tommy! Sounds like you guys had an epic S.E. creekin' time Can't wait to get back down there.......

Hey Phil. Hope ur planning on running the green race this year with everyone...in a canoe...not a kaynoe.

Yeah mick, it was pretty epic. had a blast for sure. hopefully i'll catch ya at ALF this year. its been a while.

Part 4 of 3 - this last report is a bit long...but this was the most action packed day.


6 AM Monday. My alert wakes me up from one of the only real nights sleep I got all trip. At this point, Wayne and I have been in TN since Wednesday…but alas, instead of going home on monday like originally planned...we decided to get in one more day of boating before we head back north to Pennslytucky. Wayne and I pack up all our stuff at Louie’s house, say our goodbyes…and we were off to meet Dooley, and then to Upper Big Creek, NC.

A couple hours later we got to the creek, and geared up. It was rather cold out… But we wouldn’t be cold for long, as it’s a 2 mile uphill hike on a horse trail to get to the Put-in, and i was paddling the Viper 11, so that hike was funnnn. I don't think Dooley took his canoe off his shoulder for 1 second. That man is an absolute animal. (if he is in fact a man and not a cyborg canoeist) We put in at Midnight Hole, and this rapid would start a reoccurring theme…Dooley styling a drop completely dry, and me running it with a bunch of water in my boat afterward. Kind of frustrating, as staying dry isn’t usually a problem that I have…but this southeast boulder garden stuff….it’s not so simple. Up to this point, my entire canoe career has taught me that when you see water pillowing up on a rock, you follow the current that goes around the rock….WRONG. After watching Dooley all day, the key is to Boof every freakin rock possible – stay on top of the water.

I was wet for most of the run, making it work, getting to eddys whenever I could to dump. I found that it wasn’t that hard to get down Big Creek right side up (even though I had to hit 2 quick rolls in boulder choked rapids and swam once due to strainer), the hard part was running it dry, as it was basically three miles of continuous Class IV. We finally found Wayne’s camera charger the night before, so he was busy bustin down the steeps, hittin eddys, and shooting film. Although nothing in Big Creek is really that ‘superb looking’ in terms of ‘big drop/money shot’ appeal….but the steepness of the creek, clear water, and mass amount of rocks made for some pretty darn good footage.

Dooley had to get a half day of work in, so we busted arse to the take-out…and it was over just like that. Said our good byes to Dooley. Thanked him for giving me the opportunity to paddle with him for two days in a row…and we were off, headed north…until I gave in to what Wayne wanted to do (Thank u wayne) – drive to Asheville, hike in to the green, and scout the hades out of it.

It was around 3pm when we got there, and we needed to jog in to beat darkness. 30 some minutes later of hardcore hiking, and there I was…standing at Sunshine. And let me tell you…If you’ve ran Sunshine…You are one bad momma jamma. Either that or Insane…or probably both. For those that don’t know Sunshine…it’s a 14ish ft. drop where 80% of the water going over it smashes into a car sized boulder right in the middle of the landing. So basically…any slight screw up and you could very well be paralyzed.

We then proceeded to scout the rest of the rapids...GrooveTube, Rapid Transit, Neeses Pieces, Scream Machine, Gorilla, Notch, pencil sharpener, Boof or Consequence, Go Left, Chief and Zwicks. I’m sure I’m missing some, but those are the ones I remember. And I’ll tell you one thing…The Green Narrows is the definition of FullGnarlz hair boating. It was definitely an eye opener, in terms of...where I need to be skill/confidence wise to run the green race. After taking some footage, we peaced on out of there, and got back to the car right as it was turning dark. It was 5:30pm, and driving home after a 12 hr day of serious ‘work’…was no good. So we decided to stick around, and crash at a local boaters house. And what better house to crash at than Eli Helbert’s, the CanoeGuru!

When we got to Eli’s house, he greeted us at the door, took us into the kitchen, where he said he figured we would be hungry…so he was cooking a huge piece of steak…I’m talking 8 inches in diameter, a foot longwise, and 3 inches thick. It was a serious piece of meat, I’ll tell ya that much. After eating dinner, we chilled out a bit and proceeded to BS about canoeing for hours, which was more or less a reoccurring theme all week. God, I love talking about canoeing. We covered such topics as the infamous CrossBow Smash, Boofing wave trains, and the POWER of the cross deck J stroke (just kidding – but we did talk about how funny it was that less than 9 months ago, I was not only completely sold on the xJ, but I was preaching that it was THE STROKE to have…hahaha).

After learning about “Bear, Ninja, Cowboy” from Eli, Wayne and I dueled it out for the couch. Cowboy shoots bear! And Ninja merks the Cowboy…2-0, I win… Wayne = Floor. After watching some more WW video, we all finally went to bed around 1 am. Wayne and I got up at 7AM Tuesday…and finally headed home….with ANOTHER Epic Trip in the bag.

Nice write-up Eddy. Your style is much improved on the writing side of things. I wouldn't dream to comment on the paddling one. Good on you to get out and about and get it done.

Great T.R. Tommy. The journey's, adventures and friendships we make in this sport are often times just as fun and memorable as the actual paddling aspect of it. Keep working on the newly acquired skills you've found and enjoy your new rides.

Great stuff, Tommy.

Hey! Who brought the Monkies?

as if I don't know. They are certain not to sell it in the stores down there, right? They got that great PBL liquor.

Did Gumpy and Tony paddle at all? Or were they dealing with Monkey drool?




Big Al

Nice writeup Tommy. Hopefully the stars align for my boys and I to do the local Codorus Creek with you sometime we're at grandma's. I've been trying to inspire them for years, get them to catch "the bug." But you might be just the man for the job ... that is after PAC and crew soften them up at the Western PA "Slip Clinic" this year.

Thanks guys.

Yeah Craig, I kind of started realizing that my life was shifting when I started skipping my friends parties, Alumni weekends, and stopped putting a lot effort into chasing tail - now, outside of paddling... my social life ain't what it use to be. Paddling is my social life... I wouldn't want it any other way.

Al - Gumpy brought the Golden Monkeys. Very key. And yes they did paddle... I know they paddled the Middle Tellico(upper was still too high)....and maybe thats it?...o man...I hope you guys at least got in one more day of paddling...otherwise thats what I call an expensive social trip.


Brian, hopefully you can get back down here when the Codo has some Flowdo. Otherwise, it's possible we can get out on the LY sometime in the summer when I'm out there. I might have a tandem Probe 14 rockin, which would be a great boat to take one down in. If we could get another tandem we could rock and roll that way...

yeah, we got some boatin in. but we were thinking of you, Al.

I guess it was best that I was working last weekend because I would have been sitting on shore wishing I was boating. It will be awhile before I have the skills in OC1 to do what you folks were running.