Well as any whitewater paddler knows, the destination you have when you leave, is not always where you end up.  Earlier last week, WV seemed like the place to be.  By the end of the week however, TN had enough water and was forecasted to have more, we immediately turned our sights down south.

After picking MPG and Jake up in South Bend, Indiana, we hit the road hard.  Stopping only for provisions and petrol, we arrived at the top of Baby Falls on the Tellico river a little past midnight.  I set up my hammock and fell asleep to the roar of the water. 

Waking to rain around sunrise, we dressed and put on with Orange Crush and Big Drop.  This was the first time Big Drop attempted to stride Baby Falls as well as the first time MPG, Jake, and I would run the Tellico.  We were all jacked up to say the least.  Our first run down past Jared’s Knee went fairly smooth so we didn’t hesitate to take back up and run the entire section.  The top section provided awesome boat scouting practice and amazing boof practice.   The rain was on and off all day while we ran laps.   All in all, we ran the top half 3 times, the bottom half 4 times, and Baby Falls 5 times.  I even got to practice a pin extraction on a fellow boater a couple drops above Jared’s Knee.

After an exhausting day on the Tellico and an even more exhausting decision making proccess on what to paddle Sunday, we got shady directions to the take-out of Daddy’s Creek and off we went.  We are still unsure if the boars’ heads hanging from the fence by our campsite were meant to keep us or the boars off private property.  Sunrise proved a good alarm clock again on Sunday morning and after much deliberation on who’s going to paddle what, Jordan, MPG, Jake, and I put on Daddy’s Creek with little to no knowledge on what lay ahead.  We boat scouted what we could and got out to take a look at Rattle Snake since the bottom half of the rapid(top half of the snake and Fang) are completely hidden.  We had an awesome time running this creek since it was not only an awesome level at 2 ft, but a new creek to us all. 

With only 2 years of paddling under our belts, creeking is a pretty new thing to MPG and I.  We both got to put a lot of our skills to the test, worked on getting used to our new or previously seldom used creekboats, got hands on practice with safety, and got to pick the brains of some veteran creekboaters.

River Junky @ Baby Falls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJlAnY5paJA

MPG @ Baby Falls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JoBT8IyZSI

River Junky