Lower Lower Pigeon – Ed Evangelidi
| River: | Pigeon |
| Skill: | All |
| Trip Date: | 07/01/2007 |
WOR, drought conditions, high gas prices. Why was I again driving a long distance to a very dry area? To paddle the “same old” dam released rivers? No. To meet friends from many far flung areas that I haven’t seen in a year? Perhaps. To hope for unpredicted “weather”. Sure, it has happened before.
During this WOR, I paddled one natural flow river, the Nolichucky – (part of the French Broad was also available); some dam released rivers (including Upper and Lower Pigeon) and got lucky with rainfall on Section IV of the Chattooga and not so lucky with rainfall on the Nantahala – the group opted to do the usual run even though the lower Cascades section was barely running. But I was trying to do my best in being creative and came up with two novice runs that no one seems to paddle on during the WOR. I organized quite a respectable group and headed up to run Section 1 of the Tuckasegee. Unfortunately, a 500 CFS release and nothing else coming in from side streams was insufficient to run the section and we headed much further downstream to paddle. Should I try again while I was, er, behind? Fortunately, Scott Driscoll was game in trying something new and the two of us jumped on the Lower, Lower Pigeon.
Well, not quite “jumped” on it, as the noon release takes a minimum of 3 hours to reach our put-in, which is the Lower Pigeon take-out. If you are the type that doesn’t tire; I would suggest also running the upper sections of the Pigeon while this stretch slowly fills up with water. Even with a supposedly late put in we still had to pull over a few times and wait for the water to catch up with us. We could see the fishermen packing up and leaving the river in front of us as the water slowly approached and swamped their fishing spots. But even with waiting for the water to fill up the lower sections of river, we still got off the river a bit after 6 O’clock. We should have gone further downstream!
River summary: The run is fairly similar to the Lower Pigeon, but without the long surfing rapid. It has pool/drop rapids with the drops being varied between wave trains, long or short cobble sections, river wide scrapey sections, a few technical sections and avoidable strainers. The scenery varies between cliffs, woods, farms, housing developments – but this is really why this run is recommended. We saw no other boaters and we saw lots of wildlife and beautiful mountain scenery – especially when looking back upstream. The most unusual part of the trip is the presence of lots of caves. Lots of small caves on the many hillsides and at the water line. I even had my boat “swallowed up” by a cave early on in the trip (good photo op). The only minor downside is finding a suitable take-out or, more precisely, a suitable road sign to a take-out. We took out about 8 miles downstream of the suggested put-in on Oneil Road. This involves taking Rt. 73 north (forget about the interstate for shuttling). Just north of Edwina, look for Caney Hollow road on your right and take a left shortly after (no road names here). Cross over the river and head downstream. There are many places to take out on river left here.
Would I do it again? You bet; especially on a dry year when a bazillion others are crowding the popular choices.