Ocoee (Roll, Rick, Roll!)
Well, my first time back on the Ocoee since knee surgery…
Author: Rick Steeves
Labor Day Ocoee-a-thon
Well, I've been hankerin' to see just how many times I could run the Ocoee in a day, but I knew I needed one thing … shuttle. So for Labor Day weekend, my wife Marnie agreed to come along and spend a day running me/us back and forth, to see just what could be done. I’d had a few people contact me about the trip, but it all boiled down in the end to meeting Mark Kieran and Eric Tucker Saturday morning.
Oh, the Ocoee.
Well, I've written a lot of trip reports from the Ocoee, some filled with excitement and derring-do, and others that were just another weekend on the Ocoee. This is probably more the latter than the former, but it had its moments.
Novice trip on the Fear
I've tried to run a novice trip every year on the last weekend of April. Usually late enough that it's warm, and early enough that there's still rain somewhere. In recent years we've managed warm, but usually the water was lacking, and we'd end up on the Fear at about 1.6', a level I've sworn (twice) I'd never run it again.
30 miles of Ocoee
While I planned this trip months in advance, recent rain in the Triangle area caused a run of cancellations, and in the end it was just me, driving to Ducktown from NC, and Mark Kieran, driving up from FL.
After a lousy start leaving the house (mostly looking for my lost bicycle lock), I still managed an earlier than usual start leaving town around 4:30. Mark had left at about the same time, 12 hours earlier, and spend Friday evening playing in Hell Hole.
Shooting the Hooch
So there's a new whitewater park in GA, which only opened this spring…
How a trip on the Cape Fear can be in Durham
Having published weeks in advance a trip on the Cape Fear, as the date arrived I was about ready to cancel. On the 15th it was running around 4.5', but by the 18th it was running at just barely over 2' which, while higher than the 1.6" I'll never run again, isn't off by much. I'd received a few inquiries, but said that if it was below 2' I'd cancel. But still, I felt committed.
Ocoee “Wonder what happens when the flume is out”
Most everyone was clinic-bound for the weekend, so I didn't know who I'd have the chance to paddle with. John McDonald was providing safety for a clinic on Friday, but was to join me on Saturday, and I figured I'd play it by ear on Sunday. My wife Marnie had also come along in "shuttle bunny" capacity.
Ocoee Kindler Gentler
I had four people signed up for a nice calm weekened on the Ocoee: Martha, Jeff, myself, and Fred (who is more a force of nature on the Ocoee than anything else).
Jeff had run the Ocoee on multiple ocassions, so Martha was the only one on her PFD.