Upper Chattooga

“Has there been any talk on here about AWs push to lift the boating ban on the upper Chattooga? It is one of only two Wild and Scenic Rivers to be limited to foot traffic. (the boaters have the lower 2/3 of the river - but they want it all. I have seen a alot of talk on boater talk, but nothing on TT. Just wondering how everyone weighed in.”

“Doesn't appear to be much of an issue here.

What are the pros & cons? (and who is the 'AW'?)”

“As low as the water was this year they'd have to puddle hop that upper section. I did the lower section in April and it was LOWWWWW”

“We did a guided rafting trip from somewhere above Keyhole/Painted Rock to just below Woodall Shoals some years ago -- Big Fun!

Hiked on the Georgia side of the river up to Ellicott Rock about 4 or 5 years ago. It wasn't especially memorable.”

“that's why i haven't hiked it yet..everone that tells stories about hiking the Chatooga always includes an "Ehhh, it was ok"...or "Uhhh, yea it's nice"”

“If the waters good the lower section is big fun. I've floated it 2x and had a blast both times.”

“The section we did was a fairly easy hike. Ellicott Rock is of historical and geographical interest but not, um.... 'visually stunning'.

Seems like it would get more interesting further up at the headwaters, though.”

“Riverwise, the lower the more intense. Section III is supposed to be easy. Section IV has lots of class IV and V water. There is one VI you have to portage around when the flow is decent. This spring, with the low water we went right through it.”

“We portaged Bull Sluice and Woodall Shoals, as I recall. (1975)

The Big Finish was the Six Foot Falls. We bounced off a boulder, spun around and went over the falls backwards. All the teachers from Darlington were in the raft behind us and they landed nose-first and flipped.... It would've been a beauty pic for the yearbook, alas....”

“The real issue is that it is one of the last wild and scenic rivers to be boat free. Birders and backcountry anglers love the area for this reason. It is a valued for its solitude and the reluctance to open it up is that the river will lose that value with 70 or so boaters going down it after a hard rain. Over comercialization is the big fear. And precedent -- once you open it to boats how can you tell mountain bikes and ATVs and horses (which are all also restricted) they can't go in? It is also hard to reach, so search and rescue is a problem on some pretty dangerous waters. And, i think people are overall frustrated with American Whitewater for bullying the forest service into spending a ton of money to say, eh, the river isn't really boatable, much and people really don't want you there -- a statement that has been in place for 30+ years. Boaters say it is there right to be on the river and who is the forest service to zone that land anyway. It is almost comical to watch, except for that fact of one more piece of wilderness slipping away.”

“Two words:
Ocmulgee River.
GA's best kept secret.

Put in below Jackson Lake in the a.m.
Lunch at Whistle Stop Cafe...
dinner in Macon...

Or make it an overniter to Macon...

Darien and the coast is 200 miles beyond. Longest unobstructed river in the East...”

“The Upper Ug-mull-gy traverses numerous shoals before reaching the fall line at Macon - a distance of about 40 miles. The remaining waterway meanders gently across the Atlantic Coastal Plain to Darien, a quaint little town perched upon the bluffs overlooking the saltmarshes of Americas most beautiful shore. Midway between Macon and the coast, the Mighty O joins the Oconee to form the Altamaha - the river that produced the world record large mouth bass. It probably has gators large enough to flirt with the record book as well. "Survivor Man" did an episode in the swamplands of the Altamaha.”

““Far From It's Mouth, A River Bears It's Teeth

We stood on a rock only a half-mile from our destination, but my concern was the immediate one hundred feet of whitewater that thundered before us. In my preceding trips down the Ocmulgee, I had never witnessed her at such a fantastically violent level.

"Can we go back?!" shouted Barbara.
I turned toward her and shouted back "Not against this current!"
She nodded. We double-checked the straps and buckles of our life preservers as we prepared to step down into what now seemed to be a vastly inadequate canoe.

Before we launched below Jackson Lake that morning, I noticed the river was running high and swift. The yellow-stained water indicated that the authorities at Georgia Power's Lloyd Shoals dam were probably attempting to keep the lake's rising water level in check. This is actually a boon for canoists, kayakers, and rafters. The high water makes for a swift ride downstream, and washes over many of the shallow shoals that occur sporatically until the fall line near Macon, about 35 miles distance.

For most of it's path, the river and it's flood plain are wide and flat. This is not the case at Seven Islands, however. Here, the floodplain narrows between bluffs on either side. Add to that a number of islands (I have never counted, nor am I a gambling man, but I would bet my emergency survival pack that there are more than seven), and the river divides into numerous narrow, high volume channels. The narrowest and high volumest of these channels is where Barbara and I currently found ourselves, and there was no turning back. As the river is divided by islands, this channel is divided by rocks. Some were visible above the torrent, and others lay just below the surface. Barbara and I stood atop a large rock near the Butts County bank surveying our options. Steep banks and an almost impenetrable underbrush made a portage impractacle. Unfortunately, our only option was to chance a run down the labyrinth that bounced and rolled below us.
"When we shove off, you'll need to paddle hard on your right until we reach that chute!" I yelled as I pointed to a gap between two rocks, some 50 feet across the swift current.

"After we pass between the rocks, switch to your left side and continue paddling hard through the second chute. Don't stop paddling until we pass over the standing waves there!" I continued as my point swung another hundred feet downstream.

She nodded to indicate her understanding, but the fear that had overcome her normally smiling eyes indicated otherwise. She was wet, and she was trembling, but she was not trembling due to being wet.

"We're not going to make it!" She said.

"We'll be fine - this'll be a blast!" I said, trying to reassure her. But I knew what was about to happen.

We then stepped down into the canoe with paddles in hand, and stomachs in throat. I shoved hard against the rock with the tip of my paddle, and we were again underway toward our picnic at Wise Creek. Barbara, a real trooper, began paddling hard just as instructed. I, too, paddled hard right. The current at our left side prevented the left turn that would ordinarily result from both paddlers on the right. Instead, the bow of the canoe headed diagonally across the current, directly toward the intended chute. When the bow became aligned with our target, I began backstroking on the right, and Barbara, as instructed, switched to the left side. This manuever resulted in the canoe making a clockwise pivot, and the little craft entered the steep chute in perfect alignment.

Things can seem like something they're not from over near Butts County, I reckon. What appeared from the observation rock to be a two foot drop was probably more like five. As soon as the canoe entered the chute, it developed an orientation of about 45 degrees off horizontal. This caused the canoe to plunge bow long into the wave standing at the bottom, and for Barbara to start kind of floating in a foamy sort of Jacuzzi. By this time, she had abandoned her paddle, and her hands were clinging hard to the gunwales at her sides. It was about then she let out a blood-curdling "Jooooooooooe!"

By the time my end of the canoe experienced a similar treatment, we were burdened with approximately 100 gallons of water. That comes to about 800 pounds of unwanted cargo - especially unwanted in our current situation. We were dead in the water, drifting out of alignment, and fast approaching the first chutes mother. I struggled to get the boat realigned, but the canoe would hear nothing of it. We hit the second chute sideways, then rolled. And rolled.

As we began to roll, I leapt forward toward Barbara. We hit the water at about the same time, and no more than three feet apart. I quickly grabbed her and told her to kick. We stroked and kicked and grabbed and finally made it to a nearby rock. She made it onto the rock in fine fashion.
"I gotta get the canoe!" I yelled.
"Stay here! Do not leave this spot! I'll be back as soon as I can!" I shouted. Then I jumped into the two foot standing waves.

I swam freestyle, which can be a dangerous technique in rapids. But the canoe had gotten a pretty good headstart in the swift current, and I knew more falls were only a hundred yards downstream. I reached the canoe, which was upright, but brimming with water. I grabbed it near the middle, and kicked toward a sandbar on the left bank. The sandy bottom soon rose to a depth I could manage without losing control of the canoe. I was able to drag the canoe to the shallows where I could tip out enough water to then get it completely beached.

I was soon back in the water making my way across the 100 foot wide channel. I reached the opposite bank and scaled the root infested bluff. This was the kind of stuff bad dreams are made of. The Roots and dark recesses were enough to make me dare not climb around under normal circumstances, but this was no time to be fearing snakes and swamp boogers - I had a girlfriend to retrieve. I had to cross what was no more than a creek to reach the islet that Barbara was still perched upon. She was squatted at the channel's edge, looking as though she were testing the temperature of the water with her tennis shod foot.

"Barbara!" I yelled. She startled and spun around.

"Joe!" She shouted back - her facial expression changing from concern to delight. I scrambled through the brush and grabbed her in an embrace. I was very glad to be reunited with her, as was she with me.

"Let's get off this God forsaken rock!" I said. So we jumped in. This time we swam on our backs with our feet facing downstream to absorb the impact of any unseen underwater obstacles. Before we took the plunge, I told her to let the current do the work, and focus on ferrying diagonally toward the left. Within a couple minutes we were standing on the sandbar with the canoe. Everything was still tethered and accounted for: five gallon bucket with snap-on lid, medium size cooler, tacklebox, and fishing rod. Missing, of course, were two paddles.

I suspected that the paddles would be snagged somewhere downstream. We walked down the sandbar to get a better look, and sure enough, glistening in the sunlight was the blade of a paddle. It was caught in the branches of a tree that had fallen into the river. We made our way to the tree, and I shimmied out the trunk, then down a limb. I reached out and clutched the handle, waved the paddle in the air, and gave out a celebratory "hoooyah!". Barbara applauded.

We were soon back underway, and shooting through the relatively tame rapids at the old Smith's Mill ruin. Around the next bend was the other paddle tangled in a snag of some sort - probably a tree root. And around the next, on the Jasper County bank, was the National Forest Service public access area known as Wise Creek. We drug the canoe up the muddy boatramp, then retired, with cooler in tow, to a bench fashioned from a railroad tie.

I watched Barbara as I dined on a soggy sandwich and a lukewarm beer. She seemed rather introspective - a trait that she rarely exhibited. I was truely proud of her. She handled our ordeal exceedingly well. She had never been in a canoe until six hours earlier, yet she seemed to have an air of Lewis and Clark about her. Yeah, she could have been Sakajaweha as far as anyone knew. While I was staring at her, she turned to me with a smirky grin and her beautiful brown, smiling eyes and asked "Ya wanna do that again?"”
gojo
11:38:09 AM
1/23/07”

“Skyra check out the "Deliverance Trip" on Phil's Photo Page, there's some pix on my name of that trip too. Good group of us TT'ers there like, back in '99 I thank.”

“yeah, and the trails nice and flat too. LOL!”

“LOL, oh yeah, I'd forgotten the nice, "flat" trials, hahahh!”

“Well....they were "kinda" flat in a horizontal kinda way! LOL!!!!!”