Cheoah River, NC - TR

Sorry, no pictures. You'll have to settle for the AW page/shots.
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/co...etail/id/3146/

If you're bored at work though, enjoy the half-assed read.

Ive been paddling for about 10 months and this was definitely a big test for me. I felt like I was ready but still wasn't sure. I have never been so anxious and so nervous about a river. There has just been way too much carnage there.

All I could think about all week and all morning was "Entrance to Bear Creek, hope I don't swim it".

We put on about 12 above Craik's ledge. This is 2 miles above the normal put-in. Which allowed for some nice class II shrubbery dodging for a while. I don't think this helped, because the entrance to the big one was still on my mind.

We got to where the diversion pipe crosses the river and things got going then. I knew we were approaching God's Dam which is a 6ft ledge with a sticky hole that causes quite a few swims, so it was time to wake up now. After some more "tree skiing" as I kept calling it we got to the eddy before God's dam. Everyone hit perfect lines and we turn around and someone from another group is swimming after a working in the hole. I take off and follow my group who is chasing her boat through a class IV rapid with no freaking eddies and trees everywhere. Im trying to find a place to hang out and wait and finally find a shrub to eddy out behind and hold onto. She gets her boat back and we're on our way to takeout rapid.

Im sitting in the eddy waiting to hit the main part of takeout and finally said "Im going". I ferried across above a sticky hole, caught the tongue, nailed the line between the rocks and was on my way. Things were going well so far, and no one could tell how freaking scared I still was.

A shot of takeout from AW, gotta love the trees!
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/ph...edium/1571.jpg

A little further down we eddied out and I said "are we coming up on entrance". "No another mile or so of this". This would be "land of holes". This is the most fun stretch of whitewater Ive ever been on. Blasting through or dodging horizon lines left and right. Then Im paddling behind someone in our group who gets shot up in the air sideways and I think "oh shit, I don't have time to turn". Well over the next wave is the biggest fuckin foam pile Ive ever seen. I paddle right into it, it sucks my elbow pad off but I punch through and fix the elbow pad and paddle on.

Somewhere along here its time to scout entrance to Bear Creek. I get out and look at it. The part Ive been nervous about all day. I look at it, pick my line and at the point Im heading back to my boat Im all of a sudden completely calm and confident. I really don't know why, maybe there was no more scared left in me after the first section of the river. I saw my line, got in, after almost flipping and having to brace from my seal launch I lined up down the right. Hit everything perfect and ferried across to the left eddy to line up for the park n huck. I took a stroke off of the 12 footer, got a little sideways but no worries, and then eddied out with a sense of relief....but this was really just the start of things.

AW shot of Bear Creek Falls:
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/ph...dium/12222.jpg
A "good" shot of the Entrance Rapid, displaying what I didnt want to do:
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/ph...dium/14794.jpg

The next 1.5 miles, with one section dropping 146 fpm is probably the most consistent, continuous section of class IV whitewater in the SE. It was a blurr of ledges, ledges, holes, waves, ledges, holes, waves, rocks. It was so hard to keep mental focus here, I knew the lake wasn't far. With the exception of getting in the backseat too much once or twice I nailed all of my lines all the way to the lake.

I have never had a day on a river where I made no mistakes like Saturday. I should probably quit now because I don't think I'll top that one. Everything I wanted to do I did, and I did it before I needed to most of the time.

I'm grateful for dam release because we haven't gotten a drop of rain in months here. It looks like the next time I'll see good whitewater is when I hit the Ark in late June. :(