Paddlin’ Ed

Rains came in a couple of days prior to Labor Day weekend ‘08,  and I was ready to get some paddling in after a long dry summer.  It was Friday and the Watagua gauge was reading around 178 by mid day.  Water was clear and clean,  with blue sky and plenty of sunshine, warm but not hot,  when Darron, Kevin and I met up at the takeout.  We dressed out quick and wasted no time in getting up to put in.

Watagua’s gauge is upstream several miles at the start of another section, and with the feeder creeks along the way and those into the gorge section its always a bit hard to tell exactly what you have getting on.  The level read to be a lower modest levels but quite doable,  and in fact once downstream a bit enough flow was coming in that it turned out to be quite a nice level but very technical.  I had run it before a couple of times at higher levels and actually found this level a good bit more technical. 

We worked our way down through the initial rapids,  Kevin, who had the most experienced on Watagua gorge in the lead.  Down at “s**t kicker”, a very tight steep maze of boulders and ledges,  after a brief word or two from Kevin on the lines,  Kevin lead off with me following, about halfway down Kevin got stalled in a small boney hydraulic along a rock ledge just below me, with gravity and flow and no where to stop,  I hammer a boof over a rock above and ran a slot above him working hard left as he had advised to catch the far left opening between boulders below and drops down through the rest of the rapid,  pumping hard for that far left as the middle opening directly below was not a good option.  Digging in I hit the far left followed shortly by Kevin who pulled out of the small hole just as I dropped the slot,  then Darron dropped down just as Kevin eddied out with me at the bottom.

After several more nice rapids we arrived at “Hydro”.  I’ve been bit reluctant about this one ever since my 1st run 2 years or so ago had gone well at the top but badly at the bottom.  Kevin, who proved to be a really good guide on this run convinced me to go for it again.  Kevin lead off and hit the rock up top going left and high, then sliding off and hitting the eddy left behind the rock.  I went for the rock slide and got high, slide off the end well but sterned in the turbulence below and pushed low for the eddy move, so still fighting the bow down I moved on for the run of the bottom half.  The flow was really pushing hard left this day, with me trying to move right,  plus running several sizable holes required attention prior to any move right.  Down near the bottom I broke out to the center but realized the rock pile center just above the bottom drop was coming up and the flow was not in my favor,  so back left around the rock, intending to move right around behind the rock.  Well,  the current moving and the whirlpool forming off the rock ledge to the left of the bottom drop pretty much pulled everyone far left.  Seeing this and being concerned about getting pushed into the corner of the whirlpool behind the ledge,  I pushed hard forward to try to rail slide right a bit and come off on the far left end of the drop, since it did not look like getting right was going to happen.  Well doing this move however put me in position to catch the dynamic eddy current across the back of the center rock pile and a tongue flowing through it coming off the left whirlpool and flowing hard right,  hammering along this flow I hit the top of the drop  far right (the most ideal spot to run), and quickly reached back and pushed the stern around so I dropped down going straight and not sideways into the bottom hydraulic.  A bit of stern squirt and some deep digging and I was out the bottom.  Kevin came next,  and found himself working with the left whirlpool, and dug out and ran the same current across and down the far right.  Darron followed hammering a bit right and across as I had.  Quite a rapid.

Well Watagua gorge is Spectacular, Beautiful, Challenging, and is just rapid after rapid for most of the run.  I have no idea how many rapids this run has,  they just keep coming.  Well at some no name drop I followed Kevin through a shallow hard right turn off of a drop and popped a rock with my bow pushing it left ( a bad thing), forced it back right with a stroke then when my stern dropped the slot and pushed my bow back left ( again a bad thing),  a few tense moment ensued as this put my bow pinned into a bad slot to the left.  Darron worked around the back and aided me in slipping out,  after putting things back in order with yak we where back off again.

We had started the day out a bit concerned if there would be enough water at places like Stateline fall for a run.,  but well before that, probably around Hydro we had found that there was plenty of flow this day,  so by Stateline with additional feeder creeks along the way we where up for the run.  We eddied out at the rock ledge just above right of the slot opening in the rock wall that forms the drop for Stateline Falls.  Kevin lead off, catching the eddy just left out above the drop behind a small rock pile, turned and ran, giving us a paddle up from below.  Darron head out and just turned behind the rock pile and ran.  I waited a few moments and then ferried over behind the rock pile, turned and went for the slot.  Now previous runs for me had a bit more water in the opening I would drive right over a smooth tongue,  today however the right side was showing exposed rock but had a groove halfway down running off to the right,  I halfway down I took a stroke and moved into the groove and took a last stroke on my left to keep my nose right,  leaned forward coming off the end so my legs would pull the bow up and dropped off to the right side of the huge tongue shooting me out and down.  Now dropping right a bit is a really good thing here with the 19′ drop,  cause dropping left puts you on line for the boulder at the end of a rock ledge out from the left bank,  so right angle off is definitely the way to go.  Well I dropped and buried only about waist deep,  bow up almost immediately,  spun on the bottom of the hole below and back paddled out upright.  We all had clean runs of the falls.

Down from Stateline a but,  we came up on a rapid that is a bit tricky and had been a bit vexious my first run and though better since had always proved to be a bit tricky to me.  This one you catch an eddy far left and have to hammer across below a rock ledge from right bank to just short of the left eddy.  Problem is that the main flow below has two offset boulders in it and wants to push you into one or both of these.  Kevin headed down and ran up close to the ledge,  sliding across halfway in a hydraulic trough then moving left and turning below the problem boulders and running the hook below out.  Darron ran next and caught the line too but then caught a eddy present halfway across at the ledge base.  I was followed trying this line, which was new to me,  and ran over to Darron’s eddy, then hopped down into a second hydraulic trough for a bit and then cut downstream about 10 foot off the right gorge wall,  ran the hook below catching the eddy along the right bank just above the final drop flowing out to center.  Darron dropped down to this eddy and out and I followed.

Down a bit further we came to the last significant ledge on river left,  where we boofed the left end of the ledge off a rock at center, then paddled out.   We had a great run,  fabulous day.