The first few times I ran Bull Sluice rapid on the Chattooga River, it was in a Blue Hole "OCA" canoe that could be paddled either tandem or solo. The camp I went to had a rule against campers running the rapid, and so the counselors would paddle all six of the camp's canoes through the formidable whitewater maelstrom. My first summer as a counselor was in 1985, and that's when I made my first run of the rapid.
This photo was shot by Todd Tyler in 1987. The river is flowing somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 feet on the U.S. 76 bridge gauge. Though I prefer to paddle on the left in a whitewater canoe, here I'm paddling on the right because at the time I thought I would need a brace on that side as I went over the main drop. As my paddling skills improved in the years since then, I realized that paddling on the left works just fine.
The Chattooga River is born in the mountains near Highlands, North Carolina, and flows in a southeasterly direction. It leaves North Carolina and forms the border between South Carolina and Georgia. At its confluence with the Tallulah River, it becomes the Tugaloo River; farther downstream, below Hartwell Reservoir, it becomes the Savannah River for the rest of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
Bull Sluice is located just upstream of the U.S. 76 bridge that crosses the Georgia-South Carolina state line.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment