Shooting the Hooch
| River: | Chattahoochee |
| Skill: | Intermediate+ |
| Trip Date: | 09/06/2013 |
So there's a new whitewater park in GA, which only opened this spring…
Mark Kieran had been talking up the new Chatahoochee whitewater park in Columbus GA the last several times I've paddled with him, and we finally decided to make a go of it. While I got a few nibbles from the local paddlers, no one else was quite crazy enough for the drive. I wanted to try it at least once although not without some trepidation; it was a long way, and the video on-line had me wondering if I was both literally and figuratively over my head. Mark said it was a lot of fun (having been there a number of times) but then again Mark is a wildly better paddler than I am. Some last minute reviewing of video on line after video on line only added to wondering just how much time I was going to spend in my boat.
The most important thing I know now is that the information I had wasn't good enough. All of the information on AW pre-dates the whitewater park. Columbus refers to this as the longest urban whitewater course in the world (at roughly 2.5 miles) but with one exception at the beginning, all the rapids are really in the last half-mile. Many of the videos are out-of-date. For example, two dams were blown up as part of the construction of the park, but those are prominent in several videos.
Also, it's several rivers. The normal flow is ~ 1000 cfs. Not surprisingly the videos are of extremely high flows. It's only late in the afternoon that the Chattahoochee bumps up to either 9,000 cfs or 13,000 cfs (and with recent rains it's gone up as far as 20,000 cfs). So you can run it all day, and then in the afternoon run something completely different. The river is also VERY wide (with the rapids being in the main flow).
When all is said and done, there are only 4 rapids. While all of them have been shaped and meddled with, all are longer and more "natural-feeling" than anything at the USNWC.
Ambush: Ambush is directly at the put-in. At normal flows it's a just barely class III, no great shakes or consequences. I didn't see this at high flows on Sat., because for that trip we put in at a small park below there to avoid a bit of a hike up that far.
No Name (called that mostly because I don't know what it's called) is probably my favorite. We blew through it on Sat, only to later paddle back and run several laps (carrying the boats back up to the top). On Sunday we ran laps until we were both exhausted. There's this hole at the bottom that's quite tricky to hit at the correct angle. At high water this rapid mostly washes out (which is hard to believe given how steep it is at normal flows).
Waveshaper and Cut Bait are on opposite sides of the river at the takeout. There's convenient parking and eddy service.
Waveshaper is just that – two solid waves you can play on. Both waves have absolutely fabulous eddy service, and you can just sit there and loop back around for as long as you want. Also, there aren't a lot of playboaters yet in Columbus (or they were all atFreestyle Championships that weekend). It's rare that I playboat, but (with the obvious exception of Mark), I was about the best playboater out there. Sad really. We ran laps on this on Sat., running the upper section, and then playing on the wave at the bottom. Both waves are solid enough that you can do just about anything on them. On Sunday I spent more time playing on the upper wave, where when you get spit out the eddy swings you right back into it.
At high flows Waveshaper just gets, well, MORE. At the afternoon high flows I ran it a few times, but I found it a bit intimidating to surf on. Mark on the other hand looks just like the videos. While he later confessed to doing what the water made him, it looked spectacular.
Cut Bait: At low/normal flows, it's fun, a lot like No Name. Both it and No Name have a LOT of vertical drop over a short interval, which makes it a bit intimidating but mostly fluffy.
At high flows? As we paddled up to Cut Bait at high flow, I saw a paddler hanging out at the side of the river, and asked him if he had any suggestions. His advice? "Avoid the hole". As we paddled away, Mark's comment was something along the lines of, "he doesn't know what he's talking about; the hole is really forgiving and a great play spot." Still, ever the conservative paddlers, we stopped and pulled out to give it a look. And really, it didn't look good to me; the hole was HUGE. I told Mark, "I'm out, but I'd be glad to revise my opinion after you run it". Mark set off to give it a go, and I stayed on shore to watch. Mark came by screaming fast, over the lip, around the wave, into the hole, and … disappeared. A few moments later I saw the tip of his boat flip by, and a few more longer moments later the tip of a paddle. Then nothing.
The next time I saw Mark he was somewhere downstream, with his boat still flailing wildly in the hole, shortly to follow him. Some clambering about, and a really aggressive eddy (which puts Tourist Trap to shame) brought his boat past me so I could grab it, and Mark eventually swam over to the side. His GoPro? Donated to the river gods, having been ripped off his boat. I think I mentioned — the hole was huge.
We later came to learn that the river was only at ~8000 cfs that day, and apparently 8000-9000 cfs is the level where the hole is big, but not yet washed into the point of playfulness at 13000 cfs. Lesson learned.
We stayed at an Econologe about 4 blocks from the takeout, making everything convenient. But that brings up the subject of uptown Columbus. The town abuts the local university (with a military base on the other side of the university). Uptown Columbus is AMAZING. Whoever Columbus has in city planning should make far more than they're paying them.The main strip in Columbus is abustle with activity. Almost every shop has something in it for several blocks and there's an active night life — restaurants spilling out onto the wide sidewalks, and central islands runs the length of downtown. While it's still in the final stages of construction, there's also an absolutely beautiful river walk down both sides of the river for most of the length. Everything is a great blend of old mill buildings and renovation.
Because of the length of the drive, I took Friday off for the drive down. If I did it again I'd do the drive differently, leaving after work on Friday, drive about halfway, and then drive the remainder Sat. morning. Then I could run it a couple of times at ~1000, and yet still be there for the high flows on Sat. If I was going to take a day off it would be at the end of the trip, where I'd leave later on Sunday after the high flow release, and then do the driving on Monday, just to maximize the time on the water.
It was a good trip. You won't find that much water on a regular basis anywhere else I can think of, and the USNWC pales in comparison, even without the conveyor. At some point I'm likely to make the drive again, but it will be a while.