By Steve Moore and Wesley R. Bradley
Two minutes. That’s about how long it took before we were sitting in water up to our chests, wondering what just happened. Our great idea of negotiating the Wilson Creek gorge in a Dynamic Duo was suddenly on the rocks.
With a weather forecast for sunshine and 80-degree temps, it was going to be a perfect day to paddle. The night prior, Wes and I decided that we wanted to take the Duo down the gorge. We weren’t the first to do it, and really, how hard could it be? With the recent rains, the creek was still running at a respectable 0” on the gage.
As I started to head up the road to the put in, I realized that 1,543 other people also thought that today would be good to hang out on the crik. The gorge was PACKED with people – but mostly sunbathers and partiers, not boaters. I made a quick stop at the take out to give a guy a ride back up to the put-in. However that wasn’t enough boater karma to prevent what would happen later. The Sheriff and a DNR ranger were patrolling the whole day. Finally I saw Wes and his crew coming up the road.
It took a while to get comfortable in the front seat. It’s tight and the cockpit isn’t set up for someone with long legs. After shoving the bulkhead so far forward so that the next poor soul will never be able to get it to come back out, I finally was able to fit in.
We put on and started to get comfortable in the boat, negotiating the entrance move well and avoiding the gravel bar on RL that follows. Next was Little Woodall. Easy setup and bombed straight through. Next up was Ten Foot Falls. We plotted our line through the mank, seeing a straight shot through, but not the little FU rock that would end up deflecting the bow left and creating a perfect orange boof ledge right in the middle of the entrance to Ten Foot Falls.
(Two hours later) After a z-drag and the assistance of three fellow boaters, we were back on the water. Once we got back in, the rest of the run went very well. After having been punished by Wilson for our attempt at tandem-boating bravado, we ran the rest of the river a bit more conservatively. We snuck Billboard, Junkyard and Goalpost on the first lap. The rest of the major drops were run clean, with a particularly decent boof at Razorback.
With our confidence restored, we went back for a second lap. We snuck the mank this time, and ran Billboard and Junkyard cleanly. Triple Drop was sweet both times – we blew straight through without hitting a rock! Razorback was another good one. On this lap, we found that it is entirely possible to blow through it in a straight line. I think the total lap time was under 30min. This boat is amazingly fast. Perhaps we have an ace in the hole for TVF next year.
We spent the rest of the evening at Grandfather Mountain cooking around a campfire, playing games, and enjoying post-river socialization until the wee hours of the morning.
The Dynamic Duo: Twice the people, twice the fun, twice the opportunity for error, but it does not count as a swim per Leland Davis. Good times, good times!!
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