Saturday, February 16th - Metro Chattahoochee

I put on at Whitewater Creek. The water level was lowest that I have paddled on the Metro Hooche, just below 600 cfs. I worked on “one on, one off” drills on the way up to base of Thornton Shoals (this is basically interval training for paddling, paddle hard for one minute, and then recover for a second minute).  This is the most difficult attainment that I have made on the bottom section of Thornton Shoals (my second most difficult attainment was when the river was at 3,000 cfs). I tried working from river left to right, and did work upstream to an eddy on the river right bank. From there I had one last drop to climb. As I climbed, I had an angle too far to the right — soon I was heading downstream. As I arched to the right, I did avoid the rock that I did not want to meet with the middle of my boat I eddied out at the bottom of the rapid, and worked on coming up with plan b.

I ferried over to river right and then started to climb the rapid catching eddies from river river right to left. Reversing the angle worked as I climbed up the last mid stream eddy. Again I reversed my angle and headed to river right. I was paddled hard, and I could detect the boat was moving upstream! Slowly I was up the ledge. I paddled to the left and into an eddy where I caught my breath. The remainder of the rapid was not as difficulty.

Soon I was at the still water above Thornton Shoals. I paddled hard over to the beach near the walkway. After a short break, I headed back downstream. I tried to paddle as fast as I could on the calm water and then paddle in a controlled manner down the rapids. Soon I was below the last drop in the still water above Long Island Shoals. Again, I returned back to “one on, one off” drills. I paddled down through the top part of the shoals to just above the I-75 Bridge. From there I turned back upstream and attained back to Whitewater Creek. A good day on the river!