Archives: Trip Reports

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CCC volunteers found enough tires for two cars, enough plastic bottles to open a recycling center and enough sandals, boots and flip-flops to open a shoe store during this year's cleanup on the Tuckasegee where the river empties into Fontana Lake.

Instead of heading for a river on a hot July morning, 24 paddlers decided to tackle a raft of trash about the size of a football field. Volunteers hauled in 150 bags of trash, eight tires, one ottoman, one bowling ball and a very large icemaker.

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On Sunday May 13th we had a group of 6 on the French Broad. 5 people joined me for a trip from Bardhard down to Stackhouse. The trip went well.  There we two people that joined me hand paddlng Frank and Koz. It's a rare thing to have 3 hand paddlers on one trip. Also on the trip was Greg and Donna as well as Elliot. It was a nice day on the river.

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Rain is a good thing, but it sometimes complicates a trip coordinator’s choice. When I planned a “Richmond area” trip many months ago, I was thinking about the James or Appomattox. The rain earlier this week washed those thoughts away – both rivers were too high for this open boater to consider running. I finally settled on the Rockbridge Baths section of the Maury River near Lexington, Virginia. While all the “big dog” boaters were meeting upstream to run Goshen Pass, we were gathering in front of the Rockbridge Baths Post Office.

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I usually coordinate this trip the end of April because I've found that the last weekend of April is late enough to be warm, but early enough to still have water somewhere. This year, I had more water than I wanted. After nervously watching water levels all week, we ended up with the Goldilock's Solution for kayaking: the Cape Fear was too high, the Eno was too low, but the Haw was mostly right (5.8', only a bit higher than my preferred novice level of 5.5').

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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.

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Spam, Spam. Spam, Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam, Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. January 20th. Debbie's. bacon and egg biscuit. Bacon and egg biscuit. 220 Sweepstakes. Very early. Tom Womble very earlier. Food doantions. Hygiene donations. Case of Honey buns. Thanks. Boats rolling in. More boats rolling in. Still rolling in. Lot 2540 van. Marty thankful. Nice. Helen no show.

10:25 first shuttle wave. 10:37 second shuttle wave. Clear road. Clear road. Snow road. Clear road. Thanks Zeb. Take out. Duke shuttle bunny.

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Ocoee Drawdown is a special time. It's not cold, but you can tell winter is coming. Except for this year, where the weather was in the 80s. It's a time of peace and quiet on the Ocoee, where you can find your way. Except this year, with the sadness of its impending end. 2018 is the last year of the last licensing agreement. While there was a lot of confusion about whether Drawdown would continue, it's on the release schedule for 2018. That said, it's not expected for 2019. 

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In all of my years of paddling, I've never run the Dan through Kibler Valley.  I'm not sure why I haven't ever made this trip before.  The river is a scenic, narrow, scrapy but fun run at a 7000KW release from the Power House.  For my 1st D I had assembled a crew of Donna Murphy, Greg Murphy, and Rick Higgins along with a crew from the Smith River Valley paddlers.  Rick and I met at the REI in Durham and made the trip up to Kibler to meet up with Donna and Greg.  We ran two laps with Greg and Donna showing me some fun moves up and down the river.

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