Cheoah Weekend Trip report

[ScottH]

James, Jessica and myself wanted to take off Friday afternoon and head to the Cheoah for 2 days of boating fun. With a scheduled departure time of 4:15pm, I was disheartened when Jessica called around 4pm to say she had over slept (she works nights as a nurse) and had left almost 2 hours later then planned from her house near Fort Smith. Surprisingly, we were loaded and on the road by 4:45. I am not sure how many laws she broke to get to my house in something like 2 hours, but her poor little Jeep was actually smoking and bleeding fluids all over my driveway when we said “we’ll deal with it when we get back” and we hit the road.

This was my first road trip with either of these folks and my first time traveling with a girl (besides my wife). We instantly started picking on each other and having a few laughs, and Jessica ended up hanging well with the male humor and antics throughout the weekend.

15 minutes on the road, not even out of Little Rock I get a call from my lovely wife, Renee, who is in Nashville for 2 weeks with work. Our plan is to sleep at her hotel and then the 4 of us head to the river Saturday morning. She has just wiped out on her rollerblades, causing some major body damage. We arrive, I inspect Renee, we sleep, and 3 of us head to the river Saturday morning. Maybe next trip Renee.

So that is twice now I have had to instigated Rule #1 of Kayak Roadtripping – No matter what happens, go paddle and deal with it when you get back.

We arrive at the Cheoah put-in around 12:30 and are surprised to find that Druse, Kaylan, Cathy, Chris, Jason and Sabrina have waited for us to launch. We gear out and start down the river with Jessica and James looking a little nervous. See they had broken rule #2 of Kayak Roadtripping – never go out to the internet and read all the hype about a river or watch too many YouTube videos right before you go on a roadtrip to that river for the first time.

Less than a mile into our first run, I go for a boof on the right side of this rock that several other’s had gone to the left of. Mid-boof I look over to see Kaylan pinned. She is between a rock and a ledge; head up with water covering most of her boat. I eddy out right behind the rock she is pinned on and assess the situation. I have to yell several times at her NOT to pull her skirt. I keep eye contact and remind her she is stable and breathing and pulling the skirt will change everything, maybe for the good, maybe for the bad. Chris (regional badass and friend of Cathy’s) pulls up beside me and we execute a textbook “grab that bi**h”. No, no offense or insult to Kaylan, if you watch LVM, they have a segment called 87 seconds where they demonstrate safety techniques and that is just what they named it. “We quickly and assertively acted without hesitation”. Basically Chris hopped out of his boat and pulled her off of the pin. I kept up with his loose boat and paddle and then tossed my paddle to Kaylan when she needed it. I guess she was pinned for 2.5-3minutes.

Not much excitement after that. Just solid lines and great fun. Ran a second lap on the bottom section with James, Jason, Chris and Cathy. Then, hunted for hours for a camp spot. Finally paid a high dollar amount to sleep in my car 30+ miles from the river.

Sunday, just as dawn was about to break, it started raining. We hung out in our individual quarters till about 8:30 then got to pack up wet gear in the rain. The group fragmented at that point so it ended up being just Jessica, James, Jason and myself running from top to bottom on the Cheoah in quick fashion so we could get on the road for the long drive home.

At the takeout Jessica springs on me that her and James were considering jumping ship over to Jason and Sabrina to get a second lap on the Cheoah and then run the Ocoee on Monday. Meaning I would be driving 9+ hours home by myself. I did not even flinch cause I know rule number #3 of roadtripping – maximize every opportunity and don’t go home till you have to (James is unemployed and Jessica did not have to be back to work till Wednesday). Ended up James felt sorry for me so he rode home instead of paddling more.

I spent a couple of hours examining and adding fluids to Jessica’s Jeep on Monday evening. My guess is the front seal on the transmission. I added 3 qts before she got there and hopped in it and limped it home in the darkness.

Another great trip with some great folks on a fun river. James is editing some video that will be coming soon for your viewing pleasure. Now, where to go next…

Also I am going to Rockport today for the first time this year. Usually I have 10+ days by this point but have been boating many other places. Look for my next few post reviewing my new camcorder and the 2010 Jackson Allstar. The Demo just came in to OOO today!

Scott

[BooF4FooD]

nice post Scott... thanks for sharing...

The talk of the pin reminded me of this video I saw earlier this week...

http://coloradokayak.blogspot.com/2009/ ... l-pin.html

[Michele Jackson]

Nice trip report! Sounds like a great trip!

[ScottH]

nice post Scott... thanks for sharing...

The talk of the pin reminded me of this video I saw earlier this week...

http://coloradokayak.blogspot.com/2009/ ... l-pin.html

I saw that video, excellent teamwork with that situation as well. I would say our pin situation was not as severe but Kaylan may argue different. She was actually pinned along the downstream side of the ledge(sideways) on a rock and not a vertical pin like in the video. Where the rescue guys are along the left wall is a crazy spot. Vertical walls for 100 yards up and down stream. They are on a small shelf that has no room for boats to sit once they got out. I wish the video guy had got a wider pan of the area to show just how sketchy it was for the rescuers as well. I looked at that ledge and considered using it when we had someone surfing in “LJ” Falls but he washed out without needing assistance.

If I ever stay at home long enough, I have some great footage of Heath, Randy, Lance and Myself running this run (the Embudo) a couple of weeks ago on our trip out west. Similar water level to that in the video and we ran everything except for about 25 feet (the final drop of Cheese Grater, It looked too low )

[BooF4FooD]

thats right, i forgot yall ran that... definately post up so footage if you get time...

jared

[FarPastGone]

Sounds like ya'll had fun. Sorry didn't get a chance to run into ya'll...saw pretty good amount of carnage, and helped with a boat rescue. Fun two day quick trip.

-Matt

[us75n]

Cheoah River... did not fail in its ability to install intimidation in new paddler's, well at least in me. Like Scott said we had a great time on this trip and all turned out well, even though Jessica and myself had to go through the Lance Jones Top 2000 worst songs iPod jam(thanks to Scott) my ears a still hurting.
I have posted a vid for all on YouTube follow the link below or do a search for us75n and it will pull up my page and the video will be listed there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIrPVs3qFg0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks to all that were there it was AWESOME...
James

[paddlinggoddess]

It was a great weekend. I was there too. I only ran down through the Falls but did run the falls several times to get some video. It is posted on YouTube but I am to dumb to figure out how to show the link. Anyway it is Scott,James, Jessica, Jason, Sabrina, and John. The title is Cheoah2009 AR invades NC.
Sabrina

[Lupe]

Sabrina's video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMPYk5cjx_o

Looks fun!

[us75n]

Well I forgot to put a post here for the revised vid from our trip here ... hope every one injoys maybe some day I will get to together. :roll:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIrPVs3qFg0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[turboturtle]

Thinkin with your dipstick agin Jimmy!

Thwaaack!

Aaargh

[turboturtle]

Super vid "Jimmy" kinda made me feel like I was there!

[us75n]

some day we need to go out bust up some water ... oh the video that would follow may not be allowed with out age verification.

[turboturtle]

You should blipvert through all the shenanigans put em on a disc and bring it to the impromptu film fest that looks like is going to happen at Triple O.

[paddlinggoddess]

Thanks Lupe for posting the link I am to stupid to do somethings and too smart to do others.
Sabrina