Hurricane Ida Southeast Flooding Report Part 2

This is a continuation of the Hurricane Ida Southeast Flooding Report.

Next we headed towards Gatlinburg, TN to check out some of the creeks. Our first stop was the Greenbriar section of the Little Pigeon. It looked like it had some fun spots, but definitely had some wood, was flowing through a lot of trees, and had an unavoidable river-wide keeper hole. It would have been a fun class III ride if not for the river-wide hole. Getting beat down on something that is other wise class III isn't my cup of tea. Some big creeks or small rivers can hold a lot of water and not get too bad, but the Little Pigeon is too narrow to hold all the water that was coming down. Waves and slides into holes are fine, and so are ledges and falls on normal days, but those small ledges in effect create low head dams when things flood out. I'd like to see this one at half these flows as I'm sure it would be awesome without feeling like you were rolling the dice. (Check out Bryce's footage of the middle section of the Meadow river in WV for a river that has a creek type feel and can hold a couple thousand cfs easily: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUG_a7_FGQ8 )

Next on the list, we checked out an easy run on the West Prong of the Little Pigeon where it flows through downtown Gatlinburg. We were mainly going to do this class II for giggles and exposure as even in the winter, Gatlinburg is a crowded place. It is a good thing we checked it out while setting shuttle. The first thing we wanted to check out was to make sure that each of the numerous bridges through this section were tall enough to be passed under at this level. We came to the first obstacle that we would need to portage; a bridge with a solid support wall in the middle, construction debris on the left, a metal joist hung up on the support wall, and a low pipe under the right passage. Next we came to two more obstacles upstream, a low head dam and then a spillway under a bridge that created yet another keeper hole. This forth of a mile class II was a portage fest with all of the hazards mentioned. It was starting to sound like Bryce's hypothetical class VI whitewater park that he would build if he won the lottery. We decided that on a sunny, summer day with tons of tourists, it would be worth it to hand out some business cards and get riverboarding on the evening news, so I'll wait till then and still portage all of the death traps.

We looked further upsteam on the West Prong and found more trees. Come on and get with the program, Park Service! I knew not to even bother going further upstream on the West Prong as it is all class V when the rain puts it up to it's normal runnable level; and even most pro boaters avoid it at high water after a death during hurricane rains last year. There are three sections there that increase in difficulty. I would definitely like to check out the lower most section some time at normal rain run off levels, and inch my way up depending on how that goes. We pretty much decided that we were done getting in the cold water, but that it would be fun to drive around and check out the Little River (not to be confused with the Little Pigeon). Some of the upper sections looked like the easy sections of the Blackwater in WV, and if it hadn't been so cold, Jusbyn would have probably wanted to get back in the water as he has done this section at lower water. The Sinks were just incredible to see at this level. The Sinks is a waterfall that I have no desire to run. There are rocks that are barely submerged in the landing zone and the drop is a broken shelf with points that protrude and recede, basically the type of stuff with plenty of caves back behind the falls. We saw a young boater that had just swam in some burly ledges above the sinks before we drove up, barely getting to shore above the main drop. He was looking for his boat, but if it wasn't stuffed in a cave at the base, it was probably on it's way to the Gulf of Mexico barring any lake impoundments to stop it. He had that wide-eyed look on his face that you recognize if you've been pushing the limits for any length of time and had a close call yourself. After that, it was back to the other vehicle parked in Gatlinburg, glad to have run the Pigeon at such a high level, skunked on some of the creeks being high or having trees and debris, but still having a fun afternoon driving around and checking things out.

I think my strategy for the next time things are this high is to hope for Big Creek to be a little lower and without the wood, make multiple runs on the Pigeon, and go a little further towards Townsend, TN to check out some of the tributaries of the tributaries which should just be coming in at runnable levels when everything else is too high. I also found an awesome surf wave on the French Broad about 3 miles upstream of Bridgeport, TN when the water levels are high. There is no eddy service, so it would be a one shot and your off type wave, but looks to be awesome. There wasn't enough time or daylight to get to everything in one day, but it will also be on my to do list during the next high water event.

Blessings and Big Wave Trains. Ride hard and safe.

the mighty bearded one,

Kevin,

Kevin is a Face Level Industries C.O.R.E. team rider and is also sponsored by Mean Monkey riverboards, Faveur clothing, Tooks headware, SMX optics, and Globe shoes.