Weekend Creeking!!!
It has taken me a full year of living in Asheville to finally get some reall creek action. No Creek boat last winter and no water the last few months had left me all but starved and aching to see what this creeking discipline was all about.
Firday was looking sparse as far as rain was concerned. The local forcast was looking rather bleak and when I went to bed fri night nothing was up. Regardless of this I still set an early alarm and drifted off to sleep. 0600 came about and like a child on Christmas I jumped onto boatingbeta to see what the Gauges had in to tell. Scanning down through all the red my heart sank. At the bottom of the page I noticed Wilsons Creek and the Watauga Gorge were in the Green! I called a buddy Taylor and told him to get in the car and get to Asheville… By 7 am text messages were flying and Wes told me he was going to Watauga.
Watauga Gorge was once one of the toughest ccreek runs considered boatible, as time passed by It is still highy respected for its continous steep nature with non-stop action similar in nature to the Cheoah. There are more rapids than I can remember but in essence The river gives you 1/2 mile of warm up boogie. Then it starts to stomp, back to back class 4 drops bring you to Haydro. Hydro is a solid class 5 rapid with an insanely retentive hole at the bottom that resembles a natural lowhead dam. Being this was my very first creek run and still having several miles of water ahead of me I opted to go high and dry on the left bank and set up boat safety below the rapid. Jen (Wes’s fiance) set up with a rope beside the hole.
Plenty of Boogie and class 4 drops brought us to my one of the best moves on the river. The crew call it airplane boof. You start center and make a hard left boof turning 90 deg through the move… very cool and nailing it makes you feel like a superstar 
Hitting the airplane boof
Dont remember where this was… anybody???
The climax of the river is a rapid named stateline. class 4 rapid above a 16ft waterfall, dont swim… Shallow drop off the left side. Hit it with hard left to right momentum nad a big left boof stroke… Awesome!. Im still buzzing over this one and I got beat down below it leading to a shameful swim… Next time. More boogie led us to the Wautage initiation, rewind. Tradition tells us that you have to run this approx 8-10 ft steep slide backwards for your first run. We all did even Wes who accidently went the wrong side and had to get out above a sieve and carry for a little bit.
Song for the day
“Anna Molly” by Incubus
Full River Description
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_1143_
Next day Wes called again. Wilsons although low was still boatable and we headed off to get in a few runs. Although not nearly as difficult a run. Wilsons is a must make river when the water is running.
Plenty of boogie water with some great class 4 rapids along the way. Mank above 10 foot, 10 foot falls, Boatbuster ( best boof on the river), Thunderhole, Bilboard (aka get a room after Jen boofed onto Wes), Tripple falls, Razor back. Im not sure if this order is correct and I might have missed some.
My first run was pretty shakey. including a pretty good broach /pin where I had to bail. Wes gave me a few creeking tips which opened up the doors to the creek world as far as Im can tell. Runs 2 and 3 went really well in spide of me getting pinned above 10foot. We hard charged getting some pretty good non-stop runs. Total about 750 vert feet in a short afternoon… All in all an amazing river. One of my new favourites.
Songs for the day
“Dont Stop” by Innerpartysystem
“Mice and Gods” by Clutch
Full River Description
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_1146_
Had luck been a little stronger I would have prefered run Wilsons then Watauga. After Sat I was not too sure if I was ready for another run down the Watauga. After Getting my chops together on Wilsons… I cant wait to get back on Watauga.
Big thanks to the sexy kayaking beasts crew… Showing me down these rivers has me totally hooked on SE Creeking!!!
Until next time…
Pray for rain and SYOTR
I was having a hard time embedding video sooooo here are the links to some good ol’ footy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FIHJ_f9fGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXRQsO28lA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FT8BFkXGn8
4 comments October 27th, 2008