Paddlin’ Ed

Just when most of us around this area where about to give up on a big rain event weekend that just seemed to have fizzled on Friday and Saturday,  early Sunday morning it poured.  Grandfather Meadow’s and some of the other rain gauges up toward Boone NC shot up with over an 1 inch of rain before dawn feeding a surge of water toward the headwaters of Wilson Creek.   When Gif G. and I met at the gauge at 11am Wilson’s had jumped from -8 the previous day to almost +6 which is considerable water on this creek.  Shortly thereafter Eddie C. showed up at the takeout and reported it was up to +7 and went upstream to determine if it was still rising.

While we waited for Eddie C. to return and to meet some of his buddies from SC,  Gif and I went back down to the gauge and found it had dropped back between +5 to +6 inches and had evidently peaked, then headed up to the put in with the rest of the group who had arrived.  Right off you could see things where pumping with a lot more white foaming action in the rapids.  We got on and proceeded down, with a noticeable push to the river at this level,  though things where also a lot more padded out with more alternate route open than usual at lower levels.  Holes however where definitely much bigger and nastier.

Everything went along nicely down through Little Woodall,  though one member of the group early on broke a back band and we stopped for emergency repairs.  One down to the entrance of 10′,   we all cleared the bolder clog into the eddy and found the normally tight squeeze after circling the boulder at the top was opened up with the flow.  We each worked down with another group weaving in and out of us.  I left the staging eddy last after Gif,  hit the boof,  stalled in the backwash below for a few second, dug out, straighten up and hit the drop through the neck-down below just left of center, hit a little crosscurrent whirlpool action below and did a 360,  keeping the boat nice and flat and digging in to pull out and on line to just left of the flat boulder on the lip of the final drop I bombed down and slammed through the hole at the bottom pulled out and hit a second reactionary hole that had opened up with higher water,  ender over instantaneously,  hung, then set up to roll and found my butt on the back rim of my cockpit as the hole had sucked the skirt off the cockpit rim.  Well after gathering up below and set off again minus one member of the group who decided to take off.

On down, having a great time with the extra water, we went working our lines till we got to the 2 ledges before you get to the entrance to Boatbuster.  The first of these ledges has a very ill tempered hydraulic at higher levels with guard rocks out a few feet underwater and rock boulder at each end.  Now most folks run this on off the left corner going back left.  Eddie C. had previously shown me a move around the far side of the boulder on the left,  coming off at a steep angle left and landing in a narrow slot sideways below short of a boulder underwater just out from the ledge over there.  A bit tricky but it keeps on well out of the very nasty hole a few feet away which I personally assure you, can be an ill-temper hole if you stall or get popped back a bit, so I took my alternate line.

At the 2nd ledge which is a lot like the previously one, again most folks hit it hard left with left angle off the end,  however at bigger water there is a cleaner line off far right.   If you hit the right line boofing off with speed and angled right going down you hit the outflowing tongue just out from the hydraulic at its base.   Eddie C. and I both ran the right line nice an clean.

Boat buster was a definite line off the left  at the top over the buster.   A couple of folks commented to run left and stay as left as possible.  I was last down into boatbuster and saw the others drop off from far left fine.  I new at high levels to start left, but  I probably ran back a little to far right after catching the tongue far left which headed down going right,  which put me fighting a bit at the bottom to get  over  to the entrance of Thunderhole, so I ended up entering off the right side and got spanked a bit by the curler on the right wall.

I drove back up after I got off and hiked into it to get a better idea of what goes on at higher levels like this at Boatbuster, and saw what others had been talking about.  With this kind of level you want to really get far left and can come off the tongue going left as you go down.  Coming off left and going through some boily stuff at and below the left side of the tougue so you land in or near the edge of the big left eddy below – otherwise it pushes you right to the wall and you have to fight back over to Thunderhole.

At the double ledge with the slot down from the pool below Thunderhole,  most of us did the boof off left of center and hit a nice full boiling pool below with more water than usual.  Eddie did the center slot move just right of center,  very nicely.  Seems like at least one of the group did the far right entry down the slot running back to the where the rest of us landed off the boof.  Then I lead off around the left end and we all played the ledges down to Triple Drop.

Seems like Eddie C. lead off at Triple Drop, hitting a nice line with everyone following in quick succession.  I ran last and my line through triple drop was actually probably the best and cleanest I have every had,  which was a bit of a surprise as it was a beef level,  guess getting really focused helps.   I hammered hard right off the top knowing it was going to push me hard toward the left and sliced down really clean,  Eddie C. paddled up to me at the bottom and remarked ”you basically cleaned that line”- it did feel sweet going down.

Fat Mama’s and the stuff below it had lots of lines and some big sticky holes too,  and at Maytag you really got right about 4-8 foot more than normal and it still moved you back to the normal point coming off below, but with plenty of water you pretty much just needed to hammer down into your lines where normally your fighting the trip rocks.

The eddy in the corner drop boof was sweet at this level,  but when you came off you wanted to get moving left,  cause the hydraulic off the drop back into the corner was sucky.  I had to dig in a bit to move left.  Several of the group before me had taken an alternate line way left angle back right that was open today.  But the boof on the right was really sweet this day, and Eddie C. ran it too.

Razorback was a lot of fun with this much water,  you can hammer down it and hang hard and boof a bit into the bottom dogleg left, then clean over the crappy submerged rocks below at the exit without any big issue.   Couple of folks in the group did the far left line that needs high water and ran the slot back right at the bottom.  I did the “razorback” on far right with the rest of the group.

From there we all played down the remain slots, boofs, railsides, etc. of the final rapids to the takeout.  Nice thing this day with the high level was the number of places  there where lines you can’t usually run – alternates are really opening up at this level.   Fun run!!!

Paddlin-Ed