Upper Big Creek, NC

**ridinshockgun** · 01-02-2008, 05:51 PM

Heavy rain in the Great Smokies sent ideas bouncing through our heads late Friday night. We hatched a plan to sleep in the car in Asheville and check gauge readings early in the AM and head somewhere, hopefully to Big Creek. Well, Big Creek was going off.

We pulled up to the bridge gauge and the level was a beefy 3.25'.

Only one way to the put-in. A 2.5 mile hike up 300 fpm on the trail alongside the creek. I sit at a desk all week, this absolutely kicked my ass.

It was hard not to stop and take in the scenery. The hike was absolutely beautiful. The water quality was amazing. Its all clear, and there was a whole lot of white. There were waterfalls on some of the tributaries that just made you stop and put your boat down to take a look around. There was no trash, roads, or anything else in sight. Just the Smokies and the roaring sound of the creek that was about to hand you your ass.

What we were greeted with at the put-in:

300 ft/mile of continuous whitewater. Big Creek never lets up, a quality rarely seen by us SE boaters. I put on the Green for my first time about two months ago and I was more nervous standing on the bridge looking down Big Creek. I would have to keep it together for hours as we boat scouted, bank scouted, and made our way through the never ending drops, beefy holes, strainers, and technical boulder gardens in very pushy water.

We dropped into the first rapid and looked like half of us didnt belong there. All of the skills and techniques that were almost second nature were out the window, it felt like complete chaos. It was steep, technical, and the water itself as pushy as the Gauley, I got some backender practice here trying to weave between rocks and over boofs. We caught an eddy, well eddies since we all can't fit in any of the Big Creek eddies....recollected and it was on like this for the rest of the day.

The main boof at Midnight Hole and the only pool on Big Creek:

More of the same downstream from Midnight until Action Alley. I hit a hole which shot my bow directly at a tree in the water to the right I somehow escaped without incident by throwing my entire body into the tree, basically turning my boat almost upside down towards it to keep from getting flipped and stuffed under it. I fought through the branches until I got free.

We decided to skip Action Alley at this level.

After Action Alley it was just more of the same pushy, technical, steep, "boogie" water until the takeout. The difference was we were all tired as hell and managed to provide plenty of entertainment for each other. The group provided hole rides, head knocks, almost broaches, pitons, and about every other thing you could do to mess up a rapid. At one point I was in an eddy and decided to use a small hole to help me ferry to another eddy. Well, that resulted in a 30 second unintended surf in that hole.

That was the toughest thing I've done since I started kayaking. It was a test of ability, mental toughness, and definitely physical fitness. To put on that creek when you're already dead tired from the hike makes things entirely different from driving up, dropping your boat off, and putting on. Then paddle continous, pushy, and technical whitewater for the next few hours and it wears on you. If you got lazy and leaned back for one second you were looking at the sky or about to eat rock.

And as a little bonus....I decided to end the weekend with a "relaxing" run of Chattooga Section IV and thought it would be a good idea to try this at a beefy 2.1':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bgj6mXoeoM

**cold_smoke** · 01-02-2008, 06:00 PM

Way to get after it! Kayaking is a distant memory for me at this time of year in CO, but thats a nice refresher!

**neil_asheville** · 01-02-2008, 06:08 PM

Nice! Next time you land here in Asheville PM me or something. I'll be good for some eats, cold ones, and of course a couch. I'm not a boater but lots of buds that do.

**teledave** · 01-02-2008, 06:10 PM

That kinda tops my Tellico TR. Way to get after it.

PS: Neil, shockgun lives in Charlotte. He's out this way all the time. Good to see more from the area here. (I'm in Knoxville)

**kayaktheworld** · 01-02-2008, 06:30 PM

Hey, was that John Angermeier Daniel Stewart in the background of that first pick? Were you paddling with em?

Anyway, Big Creek is a sick run and it sounds like it was a new experience for you.

On runs like that, you just gotta keep a good flow with your group. Hop from eddie to eddie, one boat goes out, another comes in. This keeps people from going to fast, getting spread out, etc and I know there are plenty of small eddies to be had before action alley (downstream from AA it mellows out anyway).

Next time, even if you skip the top half of action alley, check out running just the last drop of it, Baby Gorilla, sweet little drop with two lines.

Thanks for the winter boat stoke!

**neil_asheville** · 01-02-2008, 08:22 PM

PS: Neil, shockgun lives in Charlotte. He's out this way all the time. Good to see more from the area here. (I'm in Knoxville)

TD, we're not out west but atleast we're not in Charlotte! Just razzin' ya shockgun. I'm an Asheville native, but lived it up in JH for 7 years...so you can imagine how fuggin' tough it is this time of the year. Damn don't I want to be back...

**RootSkier** · 01-02-2008, 11:48 PM

That run looks killer.

Have you seen this headcam vid?

http://catalyst-media.blogspot.com/2...ek-update.html

**Yonder_River** · 01-03-2008, 12:23 AM

Thanks for posting, that creek looks fun! Your stepping it up quick, but seem to have the motivation to match. Soon enough you'll be styling runs like that...not just getting down, but making it look good. That's the funnest part.

Seeing this almost makes me want to hop in my boat this weekend........iiif we weren't gorging on powder up here in PNW.