The Chattooga Experience...

Well, the snow has been falling. And falling, and falling, and falling. To be honest, I'm over it!

Recently us Asheville-ians have been looking further south to get our paddling fix, and the Chattooga watershed has been a great destination.

The annual Chattooga Race occurred a while back, and it was a super fun event as always. That thing is nothing short of brutal, at around 25 minutes in length, but you can't beat lining up for a 30 person mass start! Absolutely awesome... and I'm really glad I didn't puke at the finish line. There were lots of great Soc-em-Dog swims this year!

Here's a pic Chris Gallaway took of me boofing into the final drop of the race, Soc-em-Dog.

Credit: Horizon Line Pictures

Link to more of Chris's photography.

Check out local boater, Arlyn's blog with some cool pics of the race:
http://teamscumblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/long-creek-in-jauary.html

Another cool trip that some buddies and I did was the Overflow to Lake mission. I've been talking about doing that one for a long time, but Ben Blake, Dave Herman, Taylor Fearrington, and I finally got the motivation to go for it. We all took Green Boats, and ended up having a sick day out there, paddling Overflow at a perfect level of 1.5, and then rallying down the West Fork, then through sections 2, 3, and 4 at 3.5 at the bridge. It was really cool to follow a river somewhat from "source to sea."

We put on at 1 pm and paddled hard downstream the whole time, racing the daylight. Section 4 ended up being the most rowdy part, and fortunately we made it through Five Falls in one piece as it became too dark to see!

Hope you enjoy the pics:

The Crew at the Overflow putin.

Ben on Gravity. Check out that colour coordination!

Ben: "What I'm scared of is the 20 miles of class 2."
Me: "Well that's a STUPID thing to be scared of!"

Taylor routing through Singley's

Taylor- Stoked Face at the Overflow bridge.

Typical Chattooga scene somewhere on Section 3... Why did we do this trip? "Because it's there." (dramatic Deliverance quote)

... and no more pics from here on out because we were sweatin' the daylight! Sorry.

The final stats were as follows:
-37 miles of river
-6.5 hours on the river
-9.5 hours in the car!
-5 huge blisters on my hands from paddle(never happened before)

Hope everyone's getting on some good stuff now that the Southeast is BACK.

Chris Gragtmans

PS- Thanks to the guy at Overflow clearing trees on the road. You saved us man!