Our Aims

Promote canoeing and kayaking as watersports.

Teach boating techniques and water safety for river travel.

Preserve our remaining wilderness rivers for future generations.

Day Two of the Cheoah

The Cheoah, a river that American Whitewater and local paddlers have been fighting to get released for at least five years, was released for the public the second time on October 1, 2005. David Bachor, Sean Beyer, and I went to this release. David and Sean had both been to the first release, which was pushier and had about 500 cfs more flow. My parents drove us up there and tried to drop us off at the put in, but only NOC was allowed there, so we moved down to where the first rapid was and put in slightly illegally without any wristbands (Oh no!) Right as Sean hopped in his boat and I was waiting behind him a ranger pulled up and talked to Dave and my parents.

Eventually he let us go and told us that we would need wristbands when we got to the takeout. Sean got in and I hopped in my boat when another officer pulled up and started touching his gun while talking to David. I got in the water and paddled across to the other side. Finally he let us go and my parents went all the way into Robinsville to get wristbands and meet us at the grocery store. We went down easy class III- (I think) rapids and came to the grocery store where there was a fun, but shallow hole to play in until my parents showed up. After about our eighth ride they came and gave us our wristbands and we plunged into the steeper part of the Cheoah.

It was basically read and run through some easy class III-IV stuff until we came to the lowhead dam called God’s dam. I had learned about lowhead dams from reading River Rescue so I was quite nervous about this, and to make it worse one of the only two holes I got stuck in the whole day was just above it. Anyway, we got there and stopped in the eddy. I watched Sean run it and just paddled at the same place and plunged over, it ended up being quite simple and one of my three favorite rapids on the river (although I liked all of them.) We went down through the Holey Mile and we all just went over one ledge after another until at the end my parents were waiting with cameras so we talked to them and then went down to a relatively slow stretch of water and ate lunch. Then it mellowed out for a while just going through some continuous rapids until it started to pick up some gradient after this cool little place that is a circle of flatwater with pretty much no visible line through the trees, but then there was a small little slot so we went through. We kept moving, but that was mainly because of the lack of flatwater and non-moving eddies.

We came to a rapid freshly named Bozo’s Rodeo Hole, after David had an incident with a Liquid Logic team member and his Bozo the clown doll in a boat on the first day. The LL guy pushed Bozo into the hole as Dave was coming down, it is actually in the video on shanesliquidlogic.blogspot.com, it’s called LL’s new Team Member. Anyway, if you have heard of any rapid on the Cheoah it is probably the Biggun’, which is a ten foot drop, although strangely enough the entrance rapid and the one directly below it are much harder. I was looking for the bridge that signaled that the takeout to scout it was just ahead. We arrived at the bridge and went through one or to easy but big rapids and then I saw about thirty boats piled up on the shore, which was the place to scout. We went up to the road and walked down to where the spectators were. My dad was there and he pointed out that the right side line that wasn’t as hard last week was much harder this week.

So instead of going right down a few holes we decided to plunge over the middle. We walked back to our boats and watched some guy in a yellow Huck get trashed in the entrance rapid and swim, he got out before the drop, but his boat didn’t. As I was getting in I think I saw Chuck Estes go past me, but I didn’t see him in time to call out. Anyway we followed the line of whoever it was because it was much smoother than most of the others. We got down to the last ledge before the drop and of course, I got flipped in the hole. But it just rolled me up outside of the backwash, so it was all right. This was my first “real” waterfall so I waited for Sean to go first. He made it then I paddled up and did fine, except my paddle was really high over my head, and then David did awesome too.

The next rapid was a few small ledges in a narrow channel, it was really fun. Then we went to the bottom through a few more big holes and fun rapids. There were two water temperatures and colors at the bottom where the Cheoah joined the Little River. The Cheoah was brown and bathtub temperature and the Little was green and ice cold. It was really cool to see the line where they were separated. Then we took out below the bridge in order to avoid .3 miles of flatwater, but it is definitely not worth it. It was steep, rocky, and full of spider webs. Anyway as far as river running goes this is probably my favorite river so far (as far as playboating goes I don’t think anything beats the Ottawa.) Thank you David and Sean for taking me down with you and also thanks Mom and Dad (Phil and Patti Austin) for doing shuttle and taking pictures.

Woody Austin

See you all on the river!

East Tennessee Whitewater Club

Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Contact for Website