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Tallulah, 1st and 2nd weekend releases, Nov. 1998
Test video of John Mcrea surfing Amphitheater
Broad River, near Athens, GA For a description see the American Whitewater Broad River page. Also check out the Broad River Watershed Association, they help protect this remarkably beautiful and clean river. Below are photos and video of some very high water runs, at these levels the surfing and big water are the highlights. At levels above 15 feet or so, large surf waves and holes abound, some have good eddies, many are caught on the fly. Roostertail rapid at the end is an incredible sight and fairly intimidating with large standing waves and holes. At these levels, come with a bombproof roll or you will be looking for your boat in Augusta... At lower levels there is still some good surf spots, I just have not caught the river at these intermediate levels. Gage link: BROAD RIVER ABOVE CARLTON, GA March 2003
Video of the high water days (Quicktime, 26.4 Mbs). I am not sure which of the three runs the video is from. It is probably a montage of two or three of them. Thanks to Ashley Young for the footage. September, 2004 After a priming rain by Charley followed by the torrential Ivan, we were treated to 10-11feet (put-in bridge gauge) on 9/17 and 8 1/2 feet on 9/18. Here are some highlight photos and some video of Roostertail on the 10-11 foot day. It might be a good idea to scout Roostertail, especially at these levels. There are several violent ledge holes verging on most potential lines and a resulting swim could have dire consequences as the gradient continues for at least a half a mile below Roostertail. There are more photos and video on the 2004 trips page.
Video of Joey Moore surfing Pipeline, Broad River, Ga, ~10-11 feet. (.wmv, 4.0 MB) Video of Joey Moore and Joe Attaway, Roostertail, ~10-11 feet. (.wmv, 4.2 MB)
Big Panther Creek (June 7, 2003)For a description see the American Whitewater BPC page. Photos on the AW site.
Corbin Creek (April 2, 2005) For a description see the American Whitewater Corbin Creek Page. John Mcrae and I headed up one day to find something new to run and decided Corbin Creek looked like an interesting possibility. The topo maps indicated an ample watershed and suggested a steady 250 fpm gradient for the first two miles. We found the put-in and 5 miles, 4 hours and 600 vertical feet later, we climbed out at highway 17/75 with big smiles on our faces. It was a fairly epic day: driving wind and snow, freezing temperatures that played havoc with my digital camera, a raging hangover, multiple pins on logs, peering over each horizon line and around every corner for the 100 foot death falls (which never materialized), wrestling with rhododendron, and no shuttle set at the takeout. As we began the five mile hike back to the car, a hunter pulled up who was pretty certain but could not believe we had just run Corbin Creek. He gave us a ride back to the put-in, putting a cap on one of the sweetest days on the river ever. Here are a few pics that the camera managed to grab.
Overflow Creek (June 8, 2003)For a description see the American Whitewater Overflow page.
Wildcat Creek (October 28th, 2006) Well, I did not really kayak this, rather bushyaked it. We had gotten alot of rain but not much had come up. Tallulah was running about 150 cfs. I had been curious about Wildcat as it was relatively close to home (Athens, GA), had an easy shuttle and a decent watershed. There are three sections. Upstream of a small campground is a minigorge that drops ~80 ft over a half mile or so. The drops are a series of bedrock slides and sluices, some of which are no wider than a kayak. The second section is a gorge that drops away from Wildcat Creek Road. You can hear but not see the creek from the road. This gorge drops nearly 300 ft in just over a mile. The third section is where the creek meets up with the road again and is a series of cascades, some of which are blocked by wood. I decided to put on above the second section to see if it was worthwhile as the first and third sections seemed to be. I feared that the second section would be blocked by significant downed trees and heavy rhododendron. But who knows, maybe not. To summarize, the second section has significant rhodo but which seems to be tolerable. There is some downed trees, but not a lot. The largest amount of wood was at the base of a 25 foot falls, which I tenatively named Deflection Falls. Removal of the wood might make the falls runnable but the line is tight and sketchy (see photo). The rest of the creek is a series of slides, slots and small boulder gardens, all of which would be runnable with a decent flow. The section, along with the first and second, seem to add up to a decent creek to run and is certainly on my list to do again. Judicious removal of rhodo branches in many of the drops could be prudent as the major hazard on this creek is having your eye poked out by a dead branch. The great thing is that after running the middle section, or all three sections for that matter, it is only a short walk back the car, so it is a perfect run if you are short on shuttle vehicles. See the AW page for more details on location and gradient by mile. Here are some photos from my bushyak expedition.
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Ó 2001 Alex Harvey |
