Dealer’s Choice weekend
| River: | Pigeon |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 10/27/2018 |
Asheville Area – Dealer's choice weekend Oct 27 & 28
Rain had brought changing water levels and several choices. On Saturday, the group divided between the “regular” Pigeon Gorge (2 turbine release) and the Hepco section of the Pigeon (at 1,000 cfs). I was the trip coordinator for the Hepco trip.
Hepco is not written up in many guide books and there is no real description on the AWA page for North Carolina. Hepco is located above the lake that provides the water for the Pigeon Gorge and the flow is unregulated. There is an online USGS gauge, you can run it as low as 450 cfs, the upper limit depends on your skill and bravery and/or lack of sense. There are many places to put in. A couple are on Jonathan Creek which you then run to the confluence, then down the Pigeon to the “new” Hepco bridge. There are also a couple on the Pigeon itself. The easiest to describe is where Iron Duff road and Rabbit Skin road meet at a bridge on river left and Panther Creek road meets Riverside drive on river right of the same bridge. If Jonathan creek is running, it is the preferred starting point. We were fortunate, Jonathan creek was running and we put in midway through the mini-gorge just upstream from Liberty Church road.
The mini-gorge provides an interesting and technical start to the trip and it can get your pulse going a bit. The remaining mile to the junction is fast moving class I with maybe a II near the end. Entering the Pigeon, the water is warmer and the river is much wider than the creek. The rapids are in the class 2 to 3- range, standing wave type rapids, fairly similar to the Pigeon Gorge until you get to Wormy, which divides the run. Wormy is a fairly long and complex rapid with many possible routes, most of them are bad choices at one water level or another – e.g. far right line is bad at lower water levels and far left is bad at low and high water. After Wormy, the Pigeon narrows a bit and the rapids get a little more intense.
At levels above 1,000 cfs the rapids after Wormy start packing some punch. The final rapid of consequence is the old dam. It starts out with a 4-5 ft nearly vertical drop, has a very brief respite then tumbles steeply around and over boulders. At around 1,200 cfs this becomes a class IV rapid.
On Sunday we switched back to the regular Pigeon Gorge with a 2 turbine (1340 cfs) release, the same as the summer releases that we are all used to. Good weather, a veteran crew and an uneventful trip.
Everyone had dry hair days; no epic tales for future campfires. Just good times enjoying the rivers. Thanks to Mort & Lee B for joining me and making for a pleasant weekend.
– Lee Thonus