travel

Ocoee River

I love all things paddle related. My husband has caught the bug also, though he does not share my enthusiasm for extreme whitewater, but he is getting there. This is our second whitewater rafting trip on the middle Ocoee. This is my 5th trip white water rafting.

This is the put in for the middle Ocoee river. Just below the dam. I learned that it is not always raging like this. Before 10am and after 3 or 6 depending on the day the dam is not released and the water is routed into a giant wooden flume to create hydro electricity.

Our guides name was "Toast" and as you can see above (he is the one in the air) he was quite the character. Before we loaded up from the outpost onto the bus we got some brief safety instructions and our guide assignments. When we arrived riverside, everyone split up into their group with their boats and guide. There was no boat or guide for us. Finally our boat was spotted, being pumped up with air in the corner of the parking lot! Then Toast showed up to complain that the boat wasn't completely full of air and asked us if we were paying attention to what the other guides were telling their people, we weren't, and we got a 20 second briefing and it was decided since we had done this before we are fine to just grab the boat and get started. This was the first sign that this was NOT going to be like the last time we did this.

At this point above he tapped us on the shoulder and told us to get in the boat, this was to knock everyone else out of the boat. We all got to take turns sitting on front of the boat. This is called "riding the bull". It is exactly as hard as you think it is. My husband refused but the rest of us did it. Only 2 fell out of the boat. The other girl and I fell backwards back into the boat. It was a RUSH!

When we got to the Dull Drums we pulled all of our boats over into a tunnel under the highway on the side and climbed around a really cool spillway. We then proceeded to line up sitting next to each other from end to end 4 rows deep in the tunnel creating a human butt dam. When the water built up high enough we all stood up fast and watched the water rage and push our boats back into the river. This is something I won't soon forget.

After rafting we went up to the upper Ocoee after the dam was rerouted to explore the area and hike around where the craziest of rapids are when the river is running. It is surreal to see the difference. Either way it is absolutely stunning.

This is where the 1996 Olympics were held. You can read about it here.

We decided next time we want to do not only the Upper but the entire whitewater section.

As if this wasn't enough fun for one day we still did a high ropes course too! That will be part 4.