During this weekend, I would tagged along with Tim and Nora for a new kayaker trip. This end up being a the best way to beat the heat and really ramp-up my nervousness with kayaking. Also, I had to contribute absolutely nothing to the trip. I was happy to be completely worthless to all those involved.
That Saturday morning a large convoy of trucks assembled at Tim and Noras. We rolled out to the Blue Ridge mountains and arrived at the Tuskaseegee River Put-in near Sylva. After a jostling of cars, everyone put in to the muddy river. I tested out my newly learned rolling skill to make sure my muscle remembered what to do. Then immediately we came to the blown-up dam, which I then also immediately portaged around. I was not ready to jump that far in to the deep end.
Continuing the float down stream, water socializing turned out to be very fun. Bryant and Dahlon manned the canoe with the cooler filled with refreshements. Nora, Katie and Rockey all were paddling with whitewater canoes. Then the rest of us, Tim, Jake, Jesse and Myself were in kayaks.
All was proceeding quite easily until the Mountain Sky began to darken. Then little bits of rain started to seep from the sky. A crackle or 2 of lightning danced through the ridgeline, before we found a nice landing spot in a horse pasture. Once we pulled ashore, the torrent was unleashed upon all of us. Whiteout of rain dump flushing the hillside and filled the open boats. Nothing we could do, but drink and laugh the suckiness away. During that time, 2 rafts came by looking for help thinking we were with the raft company. They were not ready for the river, they panic at the rain, rushed ashore, hidden and then when back into the raft and tried to paddle outs (5 mile to go). Eventually the rains let up and we continue down the now swollen stream. Thick with water it look quite a bit different to me
Rain Delay
On the next set of rapid I managed to flip myself, while floating upside down in the river I just focus on setting myself up with what I had practice in Lake Wylie. I missed the 1st one, got a little bit of air. Lend back and attempted #2 and popped right side up and took a breath. I was now in the middle of the 2 rapids, and was immedaite tossed upside down again. I distinctly remember thinking, “oh great again, well fine i guess i’ll do the motions again”. Setup again floating upside-down in the river, and flip up and everything was normal again. Played on the river some more, I swam and other did toos. Kevin met us at the take out and we all had celebration icecream.
That night we followed Tim deep into the forest roads of the Natahala for camping. Luckily, there was a large truck camping area that was not yet taken up. We all round up the Trucks and had a nice campfire for the evening. Kevin was setup in a Hammock, Jesse and Jake in their truck, Nora and Tim in their Frontier, and i laid under the tonneque cover.
Next day, I wasn’t planning on paddling but Jake got into my head and was already here, so why not keep my water nerves trembling. We figured out car logistics and put-in at the head of the main Natahala River start. Rocky gave us a pep talk, which equated look at the river, and run it. Also, it was not explained that the start of the river was intense. We were immediate thrown into a Class 3. All of the novice kayak paniced and just went into reaction mode. Kevin and Jesse went over some ledge drop. I just look for moving water on the right , it end up looking like toilet bowl. Eventually evenryone was spit out and we continued down the river with creepy fog rising off of it.
The water was cold, but the temperatue was hot so it made for a nice float. The water was very clear and there seemed to be a good bit of other people out on the river. Eventually we made it to the end near the NOC. Everyone knew there was 1 last big rapid to get through. Everyone got out and looked it over. I was noping it out of the bat. But then I watched Tim, Rocky, Jesse, and Jake go over it. Then Jake came up and wanted to do it again. Looking at it from different angles it wasn’t at intimidating. Also the explaination of how it would just wash you out helped. Nora, Myself and Jake, all took off at the same time. We discussed edding out above. Jake, and I pulled in and just watched Nora point and fly through the rapid. I circle out and just tried keep myself in the right part of the river. That seemed to work and didn’t flip over, hooray.
