John's flight in Charlotte was delayed, and he didn't get in until late Saturday.  Late enough I managed to convince him to not leave at the crack of dawn. We left at 8:30 am for a couple of days on the Noli. We arrived at the Noli Campground to find a Labor Day Celebration with live music in full swing. We asked about a shuttle driver from someone at the entrance, and one was sitting right there – how convenient! We quickly set up camp and were on our way, putting on around 3 pm with plenty of time.

Scheduling a creeking trip even a few weeks in advance is always going to be a roll of the dice, but I hoped that fortune would favor the bold as I announced my intentions to paddle some natural flow creeks on one of my rare spring weekends off.  Despite the best efforts of rain dances, it became clear to me about ten days out that the forecast wasn't going to work in my favor.  The big rains fell in the mountains on the Sunday before the trip, and by the following weekend the creeks had dropped out.

Most of my trips go so smoothly that they are boring to read about. If you're on the trip, this is usually a good thing. We had a sunny day with blue skies and 1240 cfs on the Embreeville gauge. The group started out with 6 (Liz, Wes, Mort, Gary, Peter and myself) but grew to 9 by the time we were paddling with the additions of Robert, Gretchen, and Suzanne.

Two Trip Weekend

Saturday October 19, 2013 – French Broad Section 9

Martha was a bit nervous about her first time as a “trip coordinator”. However she had been on French Broad – Section 9 many times before and the crew was equally experienced. The level was a moderate 1450 cfs and the weather was also sunny and moderate. As it turned out her biggest task was organizing the shuttle. We had a crew of about a dozen, with a mix of kayaks and open canoes. It was a pretty mellow day.

Sunday October 20, 2013 – Nolichucky