Paddlin’ Ed

Ran the Nolichucky Gorge on Saturday March 24th, 2007 with Brian C. -K1 creekboat, Jason B.-K1 creekboat, and Kevin K. in OC-1 along with myself paddlin-ed in my K-1 playboat.  Nice day,  temps in the 70’s and water was cool but not chilling.  Bit overcast part of the day and occasional sunny until late in the day when it became very sunny.  Level was running in the 1280 to 1300 cfs range.

 Good runs by all.  Kevin was sporting a Outrage OC-1 he had just bought and dealt well with the learning curve with only minor carnage early in the day and quickly began to adapt to his new ride.  Kevin had what he indicated was his 1st clean line through Rooster tail after a little consultation in the staging area about about how to run the trough behind the pour-over.  By the end of the day he was jumping twin eddies and surfing.

I had an interesting ride in Rooster Tail, after coming out the tiny staging eddy at the top and hittin into the eddy behine the pour-over rock just to the left of the entrance line.  I went to harry-ferry across the main touge to the right and went into a stern squirt crossing the squirrel line into the current of the main chute and got to practice riding a stern squirt down spinning around to just above the dog leg and then working into the eddy at to boulder line on the left above the dogleg - interesting sensation, kinda fun but not quite what I started out to do.  Rest of the run was a lot of fun too, just working the rapids and playing here and there.

 Brian and Jason had good runs in their creekboats,  which even though they are quite experiance with the run in their playboats,  the creekboat aspect was a first for them on the Noli gorge.

Not a lot of people, a raft or two and a couple of other hard boaters but basically the river to ourselves most of the day with excellant crystal clean water, nice temps and decent water temps.  We did get a bit of wind past Souse Hole down to twin eddies but not bad,  most of the run little or no wind.  Great run had by all who where there.