It had to happen to me sooner or later - the Tallulah. After all, you can't have a magnet of this size and not expect people to be tempted.
The first time I saw it, the gorge was almost dry. They let a few CFS escape down the dam to keep the rocks polished, mostly as a reminder that the scenery is good for more than just landscape photography. The Oceana was dry, and nearly invisible from the observation point.
After two years of wistful thinking, attempts to win the permit lottery, and a lot of "one of these days" whining in general, things started to change. The permit system was abandoned, and releases were scheduled. An AirTrans ticket to Georgia turned out to be cheaper than the gas I would've used up driving from Chicago. (Well, with the oversize-luggage fee and car rental, it added up to more than a usual weekend trip, but not by much).
Some observations about air travel with a kayak:
AirTrans is kayak-friendly - for a fee.
AirTrans clerk in Chicago Midway Airport is not kayak-friendly.
The security personnel make jokes. For real. On my way there: "Why are you shaking? Are you nervous?" (no, I didn't answer "because they just counted the kayak and the paddle as two oversized items and charged me twice, and made me sign off that AirTrans is not responsible for my gear - twice".) On my way back: "Is that a real beard?" (I didn't know what to say to that, and decided against a demonstration).
AirTrans clerk in Atlanta is *very* kayak-friendly (he chose to believe that the double-fee on my way there was a round-trip fare).
"Indian make small fire, stay warm. White man make big fire, stay warm - chopping wood". I must say that the modern way to stay warm consists of running around the airport with your boat, while waving about your credit card, boarding pass, and a picture id.
People in overcrowded airport shuttle buses actually enjoy being banged by kayaks. Somebody (who just barely missed being maimed by my boat) told me that it was a great way to pick up women.
Other than that...
It's all about karma.
We showed up at the put-in in the mid-morning. There was a lively crowd around AWA tent. The girl who broke her legs on the Oceana was there, in a wheelchair. I renewed my AWA membership, got a nice AWA drinking cup, and started to scan the crowd for familiar faces. "Scanning for life forms... Negative" Oh well... Safety first - I started asking people around about joining for the run. I got about five "sorry no", and that included some older people with pets and two groups with a Stubby. That seemed really different from the Gauley Fest atmosphere. It probably didn't help that it was my first time down the Tallulah, and that my airbags were three states and one time zone away. Whoops. Two Karma points down.
Finally, I got a "Sure, I don't care" that appeared to be an affirmative answer. They seemed like a fun group, about seven guys in their late twenties to mid-thirties. I asked for names and promptly forgot them all. (I think there was a Sean and a Greg and maybe a Dave). We shouldered our boats and started for the put-in. They were excited, but said they were going to portage the Oceana and the Bridal Veil. And, Lena got a hiking partner - a girl who was married to a boater from the group. So far, so good!
There was another AWA crowd on top of the long stairway. Sign your name, or if it's your first time down, fill out a form. Non-boaters are gently asked to stay clear. Turning my head away, I asked to prick my finger for the signature. Oh, the pleasures of being one of the select few... That alone must have driven my Karmic balance deep into red.
The walk down the stairs is pleasant enough, except it's quite slow. After getting to the bottom platform, everyone has to put on the rest of their gear, and that takes time - thus, the wait. Five steps down, settle your boat, enjoy the scenery. Which is well worth it - the canyon is wooded, but there are large gaps between the trees, and the water from the dam bounces down between the granite walls, complete with the rainbows and a solid rumble. When the wind picks up, the gorge grows cool - almost everybody had their dry tops on.
Finally, I was on the bottom platform. Certain items of clothing had to be rearranged, and my changing towel was still in the parking lot, 600 vertical feet above. Another whoops... I had to ask the three lady photographers on the platform to please concentrate on the scenery a bit harder than normal. At the end, I believe nobody's psyche was irreversibly scarred.
When I was ready, I looked up. I saw the river. I saw the gorge, the trees and the rainbow. I saw the long line of anxious boaters on the stairs. I didn't see Sean, Greg, or maybe Dave. There was a guy who looked somewhat like one of the group, but when questioned, denied it. Whoops number three...
Nothing builds up a boater's confidence like floating around in the put-in pool, repeatedly surfing across the current, and asking time and again "Mind if I tag along with you? Only it's my first time..." I lucked out on the fourth attempt. His name was Dave. He was paddling a red Phat, and seemed calm enough. He said he was soloing too, and sure, he'll keep an eye on me.
After reading the AWA description of Tallulah, I was ready for a very challenging run. The write-up took seventeen (!!!) pages to print. There were so many moves to make and holes to avoid, that I couldn't remember much past the description of the third drop. As it turned out, they describe every single rock, wave, and hole. I mean, when they say "go between two rocks, and then punch the hole", that describes obstacles about two-to-four feet in size, at about the same distance. Oh, all the significant hazards are well described, sure. But so are the not-so-significant, and the benign, and the rest of them.
Meanwhile, I started to get a feel for the river. The gradient is pretty steep, and most of the year the gorge stays dry - this means bushes in the current and few eddies in the rapids. There are plenty of large eddies between the rapids though. Overall difficulty is similar to the Upper Yough, maybe without the harder rapids, not as continuous, and with three or four blind drops. Some of the holes are sticky, and there's one large keeper below the Bridal Veil. Most of the run is a fun slalom. The river bed is made out of granite - which means that some holes can be stickier than they appear to be. In many spots, the water flows through the growth along the banks - caution is in order. Overall, the run gave an impression of a semi-flooded small creek in wooded and cliffy wilderness, except that the water was crystal-clear and fairly warm. Very pretty, and fun!!!
Whenever possible, I tried to win some Karma points back. Helped a swimmer here, relayed a signal there... Very soon, we made it to the Oceana.
The AWA website rates the Oceana as 5.1. Then again, they rate the put-in ladder as 5.0, so at least some of the rating has to be taken with a grain of salt. For what it's worth, here is my description of the drop (inexplicably missing from the AWA site).
The river spreads out into a wide calm pool, perhaps a hundred feet across. On both banks, the pool touches the walls of the canyon. Near the water, the walls are gently sloped - it's easy to walk on them, as long as the rock is dry. From the pool, the river descends down about sixty feet in a river wide shallow slide. The right half of the slide seems to terminate at a steep drop - it didn't look runnable, so I didn't really look at it. The left half, especially the center, is exceptionally smooth. At the bottom of the slide there's something like a rock-shelf. The water from the slide builds up on it to form a four-feet high standing wave with some foam on it. The wave kicks towards the left bank, straight into the pillow thrown up by The Thing. The Thing is a rough boulder about twenty feet long very near the left bank, with perhaps four feet of water between the rock and the bank. The water from the slide plows into it, exploding into a huge pillow - the most spectacular and the most characteristic feature of the rapid. The pillow also kicks left, towards the four-feet passage under the left bank. At the bottom of the passage there's a respectable size hole - it can deliver a good thrashing, but if you flip, you wash out easily.
The two lines through the rapids are as follows:
The left one is to launch down the slide, hugging the left bank, going on a straight line all the way down, picking up speed and plowing next to The Thing and into the hole on the bottom (and punching it without even slowing down). It's the most popular line - although for the life of me, I can't see why. You are hurtling at uncontrollable speed towards the narrow pass between The Thing and the left bank (all semblance of control goes away after a couple of boofs on the imperfections of the cliff), and missing contact with the rock is more a matter of luck than anything else. I must say though, I didn't see anybody get hurt - and that included a couple of guys in open canoes.
The middle line is to start down the middle of the slide and paddle your way left. That's right - you're going down the slide sideways, paddling. It's not as bad as it sounds though - the slide is not very steep, and very smooth, so there's little chance of flipping. And the entrance point is very easy to see from above the drop - there are two humps, and you go exactly in between them. After reaching the standing wave on the bottom, brace into it (and no, there was no hard blow that I expected), and then simply side-surf the wave towards The Thing, surf across the pillow, and drop into the channel. Again, this is a lot easier than it sounds - the water does all the work for you. The speed is a lot less, and it's more controllable. The tradeoff? Longer surf in the bottom hole.
My only complaint is - I bought a pair of elbow pads, specifically for this drop. I ran the middle channel, specifically to avoid hitting the rock with my elbow (or anything else, for that matter). Of course, the standing wave washed my brand-new Zoomer pad down my right elbow, exposing the critical two inches of the joint, that immediately hit something hard. Damn! I want my $15 back. Note to self: Do not buy protective gear in Dunhams Discount Sports.
The rest of the run was pure fun. We chatted (Dave turned out to be a great guy. He lives in Atlanta, and his boating experience is similar to mine, with obvious bias towards the southern rivers). We participated in a few more rescues - the day was reach with swimmers. Waited for a few groups to run the blind drops that we were too lazy to scout. Relayed signals to boaters on the Bridal Veil (another shallow slide, with a river-wide hole on the top that's a bit stickier than it looks, and a bad-looking almost river-wide keeper on the bottom - but punchable if you hug the left bank). Boat-scouted a couple of drops. Paddled across the Tugaloo lake to the takeout. Waited in the long line for the AWA and NOC organized shuttle. Watched a crowd helping a girl who somehow got a snake in her boat - I didn't participate in the extraction, but gave plenty of advice. (The reptile got into the stern and refused to budge. They did try filling the boat with water and emptying it, twice, without success. Last I heard, they gave up and took the boat back to the put-in, snake and all).
Then I saw the first familiar-looking face of the day - a guy on the shuttle van. I asked him if I saw him on the Ocoee a few years ago. He said, quite possibly, and said his name was Erick. I couldn't quite remember if I really saw him at the Ocoee though. As it turned out, it was Erick Jackson. I stopped by later and wished him luck with his new company - and no, he wasn't paddling a prototype boat. There was also a ten-year-old boater at the takeout - start 'em young!
I didn't boat on Sunday. Dave was going back to Atlanta, and I didn't feel like looking for another group to join in the morning. Besides, the run felt so good, that I didn't want to mess it up! Instead, Lena and I went to Atlanta botanical garden - it's nice, quiet, and very pretty. After a few hours and some airport food, we were on our way back to Chicago. The karmic points that I earned during all the rescues, made our check-in and flight back a lot smoother than what we had on Friday. The clerks were friendly, the shuttles showed up on time, and the boat came out of the oversized luggage transporter without any new scratches.
Seemed like a nice way to finish the season!
Boris
Novemer 2003