vituperation

Friday morning, we loaded up my (new as of Monday and with only 8 miles on it when I got it, woot!) automobile and drove up to the tiny town of Benton, Tennessee, where we had a cabin rented for the night on Ocoee Lake. The drive was uneventful and relatively short at just under three hours.

As we drove, the temperature dropped and the clear blue skies gave way to a dreary leaden gray. By the time we arrived, it was just under 40 degrees and ugly. A fierce wind whipped the skeletal trees and cut me — in shorts and a t-shirt because it was nice when we left — to the bone whenever I was out in it. Everything was closed, save a few restaurants and a museum documenting the rich mining history of the area.

I never knew there existed a place that could house so much information detailing every minute aspect of extracting a mineral from a piece of rock.

The day was interminable, even with the museum trip, and we drove aimlessly around trying to find something (anything) else to do to pass the time. We were there for the water, you see, and this time of year the water’s only running on the weekends. Monday through Friday is dead there. When darkness finally fell we settled into our crappy cabin, in which the floor of every room tilted in a different direction, for the night.

Whereupon we found that the TV only had one staticky channel. One. Channel.

Robyn and I debated long and hard about just leaving, about coming home to our beds and to hell with seeing the river the next morning. The only thing that kept us from doing that is that we’d brought the laptop and a single DVD of four episodes of CSI. The three of us spent the evening gathered around the screen — now she understands why I pushed for the 17″ laptop, I think — watching Gil Grissom and gang figure out crime after crime.

I spent the night in a fitful sleep, waking up every hour or so. At 6:30 yesterday morning, I decided to go ahead and get up since daylight was breaking. I stepped out onto the deck to find that the new day was starting out a whole lot better than the previous.

Looking to the right from our cabin’s deck as the new day dawns.

Looking to the left.

Slowly, I started to remember why I’d wanted to come back up here so much I couldn’t even wait for spring to get good and started. I took a shower, dressed, and drove down to the convenience store for the biggest cup of coffee they had. I took a leisurely drive back through the Cherokee National Forest as I drank my coffee, admiring the mountains.

Back at the cabin, I found Robyn awake and reading on one of the couches. She’d seen the lake in the morning sunlight too. Maybe, we decided, the trip wouldn’t be so bad after all.

I woke the spud. When everyone was ready to go, around 9:00, we checked out. After another stop for more coffee, we headed into the forest to see the Ocoee River, which should be running as of 9:00 according to the guy who ran the convenience store.

The river wasn’t running.

I guess I need to explain something, for those who aren’t familiar with the Ocoee. The river is controlled by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and has been dammed in several places. They built a massive aqueduct through the mountains, and the river is actually diverted through that aqueduct most of the time, for the purpose of turning huge turbines and generating electricity.

From late March until sometime in October, TVA schedules a series of releases of the river, to let it flow on its natural course through the riverbed. These computer-controlled releases create a perfect situation for whitewater rafting and kayaking, because one never needs worry about the water levels. If it rains, no problem. If there’s been a lack of rain, no problem. The levels of the river are constant during the releases, thanks to the dams.

This time of year, they’re only releasing the river for 6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. As it warms up, they’ll release it more often and for longer periods. By the height of summer, there are six release days a week, of maybe 10 hours a day. Hundreds of thousands of people will kayak and raft the Class III - Class IV rapids, much as I did last year only for most of them, the results will be different from mine.

We drove to the Ocoee Whitewater center to find out the day’s release schedule (10:00-4:00), and I bought a sweatshirt to wear. It was still cold as hell — 35 degrees — and I was relegated to looking like an old man for the day in grey sweats and an Ocoee sweatshirt. I’m glad I packed the sweats for wearing at night in the cabin, or I’d have been stuck in shorts for the day.

That would suck.

We got back to the spillway separating the upper and middle sections of the river (the upper section is released only a handful of times a year, and was the site of the 1996 Summer Games kayaking Olympic competition) and found the water, well, spilling.

Water flows over the top of the spillway.
My new vehicle is plainly visible on the far right near the top.
I love that it’s bigger than the last, and it’s especially nice that it has heated leather seats.
But the coolest thing? It has a nifty keyless system, wherein as long as the key
is in my pocket, I can lock and unlock doors by touching them, and start it without putting
anything in the ignition. It doesn’t take much to thrill me, I think.

Raging water on the spillway. The first time I came rafting here, I thought
we were supposed to raft down this, and very nearly crapped my pants at the thought.

The river flows away from the roaring spillway. It was cold as hell standing in that mist, even in sweats.

The river, slowly filling.

Feeder streams abound in the area, and are mighty fine to look at when you find them.

The aqueduct runs high above the riverbed, funneling water for electricity when active.

We drove to Ducktown for lunch, since the water wasn’t quite high enough for rafts and kayaks yet.

The view from Boyd Gap, and the first time I’ve ever seen a real live
snow-covered mountain in the distance. I wanted to climb it.

After lunch, we found things picking up back at the river.

One excited kayaker couldn’t wait to get in the water and kayaked the ramp.
One must wonder what this did to the bottom of his boat.

I always thought kayaking the river would be crazy, but this old man took crazy to
new levels, doing the river on a bodyboard.

More and more people put in, including a group of rafters from the company
that nearly removed my right arm.

I never knew people kayaked with hand paddles instead of a kayaking paddle.

It looks like such a blast, and from the shore it doesn’t look dangerous at all.
Strangely, though both of my kayaks are whitewater rated, most kayakers were
in these tiny ones. I imagine they’re a lot easier to control in raging water.

Kayakers. Kayaking.

More rafters. Last year, before I found that I’d need surgery to repair the damage
to my shoulder, I tentatively scheduled a trip with these guys. The weekend before we were
to go, one of their guides drowned after leaping into the river to save a rafter that fell out.
The guide was trapped under a rock, held in place by the mighty force of the water.

Don’t let the fact that a guide drowned scare you. Every year people drown on this river. Out of about 400,000 people who go down it each year, less than 10 are killed (and that includes things like heart attacks, not just drownings). Most who drown are kayakers, not rafters.

Those really aren’t bad odds. You’d probably be in more danger from the drive to the river than from the river itself, as long as you don’t do anything stupid on the water, like intentionally fall out of the boat.

Or that’s what I tell myself.

Doesn’t this look like fun? I imagine the adrenaline rush must be awesome.

A second kayaker takes the leap of faith.

Taking the plunge.
Here’s the full-size version, for your enjoyment.
I love the expression on his face. And on a side note, I love my camera.

The best part of the trip came after we watched all the kayakers, when Robyn told me that (a) she wanted to come back in the summer to spend a day watching again, and (b) that she wanted to take lessons, so that she and I can kayak the Ocoee next summer.

That will rock.