Hiawassee/Ocoee Trip Report

• Pictures

We made our annual club trip this year to the Hiawasse and the Ocoee. Everyone loved it. And why wouldn't we. Warm weather, refeshing mountain whitewater and a great representation of the club.

Most folks drove down on Friday to setup camp at River Rats. The Mathews group came down on Thursday night and ran the Ocoee on Friday. On Saturday we all went to the Hiawassee to get warmed up. Driving there Jay preceeded to make a sharp right into a field at the 1.3 mile mark of 314.

Jay is quite the literal direction taker. Maybe now he'll stop staying I am bad with directions. Joe got his first taste of the whitewater experiance running a sit on top down the river. Sara and Jennifer used the club duck and styled it. Johnny went old schoool in the Mohawk with Scooter. Amber ducked like a champ it and the rest of us kayaked, Jay, Toby, Josh, Michael and myself.

The run was pretty mellow as to be expected. Some nice ledges kept it interesting enough though. The heat tried to wear us down, but we pressed on to the Ocoee afterwards.

Michael guided the raft hitting every line with accuracy and precision... I mean every rock with accuracy and precision. Jay and Toby ran the 2 man duck and hit every hole with accuracy and precision

and it sure looked fun. Josh and I kayaked and styled the shit out of it. I took my creek boat down the Ocoee for the first time. The Creek boat made the rapids much easier I thought.

You know what followed, sitting around the campfire talking about the action of the day, looking over the pictures from the trip, bragging about how hard we eaqch paddled then hitting the sleeping bag hard. Then on Sunday rolling out of town, thinking about the next trip.

Ocoee to the Hiwassee

Saturday, June 12th 2004

After not getting the raft down to Tennessee last year, this year we made sure to continue the tradition of rafting the Ocoee. It was the usual suspects this year with added newbies of Casey, Brandon and a couple of burg boys who had never gone whitewater rafting before. We made three trips on the river on Saturday, everyone left on Sunday. Ryan, Brandon and Casey punked out on us on Saturday and went home early. I stayed and kayaked the Hiwassee on Sunday. Casey and Chris Voit swam. River Rats was very good to us this year. After Brandon and Ryan kept everyone up all night they let us stay the next day, but they moved us under a pavilion out front. I am beginning to feel that I can run the Ocoee soon.

Sunday, June 13th 2004

The next day I went up to the Hiwassee and kayaked with Meagan and Darrin. The Hiwassee was cool easy run, which what I was looking for. Good little surf spots, side surfing and some ledge drops.