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Cheoah still fun at lower flows
by Harrison

Contributed 03/23/2006  Responses:  0

Some people questioned if the river would still be worth running at 600 cfs. We still don't know, since yesterday's release was closer to 760 cfs. But having run it before at 800, 1050, 1,150 and 1,500, I'm here to tell you the Cheoah is still plenty of fun even at the lower water level we experienced yesterday. And it is not a whole lot easier, IMHO, just different.

I had wanted to come for the higher release on Tuesday, but it worked out that Wednesday was our day. Fellow open boater Pat Stone and I got over there early, at 10 a.m. There were no other boaters around, and the temperature was 30 degrees. The people in Joanne's store were bemused that we were going to go paddling. They rubbed it in that the day before had been "shirtsleeve weather" in the 50s. They also told us the river had run all night long. That is certainly better than the dam keeper oversleeping and cutting it on late, but it makes you question Tapoco's argument during the licensing. If water is so valuable, why dump it overnight?

Pat hitched a shuttle while I waited at a roadside pulloff just upstream of the natural dam, Wilma's ledge. A little before noon Pat returned and we got on, the first ones on the river. Unlike the fall releases, which were crowded, we had the river to ourselves almost the whole day.

At 760 cfs, the Cheoah is a lot more creeky and technical. Some people into the big waves of the higher releases won't like this level. But for paddlers who like threading through rocky slots and weaving through many sticky offset holes, it's a freakin', creekin' riot. For hard boats, it was still plenty of water, but it would have not been good in a raft. Many of the rapids AW describes as class IV were still class IV in my opinion, with rocks replacing holes as the primary obstacles.

Wilma's Ledge was not grabby at all, but still had a pushy runout. At Takeout, we ran the main line down the middle, then left, then right after banging through a rocky slot top left. It was good to go with plenty of eddies. Top holes in Land of Holes were still fun, but the middle part of the rapid was a scrapey bore. However when we got to the bottom, it was still booming around the corner.

At Bear Creek Falls, we encountered one of the only two other paddlers we saw all day. A guy had lost his kayak and wanted to know if we could help him retrieve it. The guy had been paddling alone, and had never run the Cheoah before, when he came out of his kayak in the class IV entrance to Bear Creek Rapids. Fortunately he swam into the eddy instead of swimming the falls (where a swimmer compound fractured his wrist the day before). But his paddle was gone and his kayak was in the middle of the river.

He pointed WAY down the steep stream bed to a small red shape. The guy said it was stuck on a rock, so I told him I would try to retrieve it after running the falls. But when I got down there, it was gone. The boat ran the half-mile White Highway before stopping above Tapoco Lodge, where I saw the guy pulling out it.

Rest of the run was absolutely fun. Lots of cool maneuvering through the rock gardens to the bottom of White Highway and Tapoco Lodge rapids. AW has named the rapid just below the bridge "Yard Sale," a fitting name given the high amount of carnage that occurs there. But we had none, just a perfect dry hair run to the lake.

We ran the Cheoah in three hours, one on the upper, one on the middle and one on the lower. The water was clear, beautiful and not very cold. The sky was blue and sunny, although the temp probably topped out about 48. The Cheoah is still a ton of fun at this lower level and I would take it over the Ocoee, upper or lower, any day. Even with less water.