Me and Sam took off to NC Friday night with visions of rain in our head, hoping and praying the creeks would stay flooded for at least one more day. We left Knoxville, TN early Saturday morning to meet up with Drew Armstrong at Big Creek in NC. We had heard that everything was already dropping out fast and that this was our last option for some Saturday creekin'. We showed up at 8:30 Am Local and found that it was running strong at 2.8 ft! With huge grins and Drew on the way, it was time to get geared up... We started off with a quick run down the lower since it's best with more water and drops out faster than the upper section. Samantha did awesome on the lower! I wish I could have gotten pictures of her run. After the lower section we met up with lots of different friends that we just randomly ran into... and hitched a ride back up to the parking lot for a run down the upper section.
Once back up at the top, we met up with more friends and the parking lot was getting more and more crowded with amped up boaters ready to get in... the water felt GREAT!!!
From there I hiked up to run the Upper and ended up paddling with too many people to name on here... it also doesn't help that I'm terrible with names ;-) Samantha was an awesome girlfriend and hiked all the way up to 'Midnight Hole' and took pictures of us there and of me in 'Action Alley.' Check out the pics from Saturday!
(Photo of Drew Armstrong running 'Midnight Hole' by Samantha Brunner)
Here's a sequence from my run on 'Action Alley.' For those that don't know, 'Action Alley' is basically one long rapid that contains the ledge called 'Baby Gorilla' and the 100 yards of rapids right above it. Sam took what she could from the one boulder she was perched on with her 300 mm zoom lense. This first one is of me running the technical rock jumble below the enterance ledge.
(photo by Samantha Brunner)
From there, I boofed on the far left side to avoid a nasty pocket on the right. This shot is of me just after clearing that boof.
(Photo by Samantha Brunner)
From there, theres a fast jet of swirly water that rounds a corner and drops off a ledge into a sticky hole. This is me rounding the corner and preparing to boof.
(Photo by Samantha Brunner)
Immediately around the corner is a boof in front of a log leaning across the river. There's a fairly sticky little hole below the ledge so a boof is a good idea. I caught an eddy on the left just below it before heading into the enterance ledges of 'Baby Gorilla'. It's the biggest eddy in 'Action Alley.' This is me in that eddy...
(Photo by Samantha Brunner)
From there it was off to 'Baby Gorilla' but unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of that. It's a super smooth drop involving a 10'? boof between a rock shelf that almost like like a giant allegator and an overhung wall. There's not much room in the landing and the water is kicking out at mach speeds! :-) It's a blast to drop in and get shot out through the flume on the right like being shot out of a cannon. Immediately after, the river drops over the double exit ledge of 'Action Alley' and the action calms down a bit... Still fun, but not quite as fun and involved as the Alley! After a fun day on big creek we met up with our friends Dan Peschio & Jen, Shannon & Michelle Nicholson, John, Matt, Jared (from Astral), Mike & Dana, and Amy ... I think that's everyone... So anyways we grabbed some food at Burgermeister (they actually have vegetarian food!) in west Asheville and as it turns out... a bunch of crashed at Dan's house that night... hoping for rain or that the water would at least hold for Sunday! On a whim, we decided to go look at Big Creek again because everything else had dropped out and the Green wasn't running... and oddly enough it held at 2 feet!!! This led to BIG fat grins and a lot of gear flinging as we prepared for the trail up the upper section having the creek nearly all to ourselves! We put in just above 'Midnight Hole' and Sam hiked up again to get some more pictures (I'm thinking next time she'll be wanting to run it -I hope so!!)...
(photo of me running 'Midnight Hole' by Samantha Brunner)
(Photo of Matt running 'Midnight Hole' by Samantha Brunner)
(Photo of John in 'Midnight Hole' By Sam Brunner)
(Drew on 'Midnight Hole' by Samantha Brunner)
We paddled down to the parking lot too tired to walk back up and do it again... From there we parted ways and me, Drew, and Sam left for the Ocoee to meet up with the rest of the Memphis crowd. We were thinking the rain was over for the weekend, unfortunately we didn't find out about all the extra rain until we were well on our way home after another run down the Ocoee Munday... Awesome trip though! I can't wait for the next rain. until then...
Have fun out there!!!
Boyd :-)
