Monday photos feature

Yes, it's "photos" plural this week because I've got a number of them to share.

The photo above, a screen-grab from WVLT-Knoxville footage, shows Interstate 40 where the eastbound lanes collapsed into the Pigeon River.  The North Carolina Department of Transportation is currently saying that this part of I-40 will be closed until September 2025.  I won't be surprised if that date gets pushed back as time goes on.

I understand that this destruction is located at about Mile 4 in North Carolina.  The putin for the main dam-controlled section of the Pigeon is right at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line.  So that means this damage is about four miles upstream of that putin.

Back in the mid-1990s several slalom races were held on the Pigeon right at the state line, including an installment of the old Champion International Whitewater Series in 1996.  I shot this photo of the C2 team of David Hepp and Barry Kennon in that race.  That's David in the stern and Barry in the bow:

I competed in that race too, and I've also run the section of the Pigeon from the state line to Hartford, Tennessee, a number of times.  In this photo, taken by Mike Davis in 1993, I'm on a camp trip paddling with a camper named Billy Treadway:

On another Pigeon run, I'm in my old Gyramax C1 practicing my roll:

Another river that flooded last week was the French Broad.  The French Broad has its headwaters in the vicinity of Rosman, North Carolina, and flows north through Asheville; it crosses the state line into Tennessee north of where the Pigeon does.  Communities along the French Broad that received significant damage include the towns of Hot Springs, Marshall, and Asheville, and the Biltmore Estate just outside Asheville.  Rion Smith took this photo of me during a 1992 trip on the French Broad where it flows by the Biltmore Estate.  I'm putting on the sort of stern expression that befits such an important man as the head of a summer camp canoeing program:

In the summer of 1994, Clay Barbee shot this photo of me as I tried to get enders in Frank Bell's Rapid.  This rapid is on the French Broad a couple of miles upstream of Hot Springs:

A couple of miles above Frank Bell's Rapid, Big Laurel Creek flows into the French Broad.  My friend Amelia drove by the putin for Big Laurel last week, and she told me it didn't look like it got quite the amount of flooding that the French Broad did.  Here's a shot of me running Stairsteps rapid on Big Laurel in the spring of 1994.  Alfred Thompson took the photo:

These photos represent just a small sample of all the paddling I've done in the mountains of western North Carolina in times when a hurricane seemed the least of the region's worries.  From what I hear, some of the rapids in these rivers have now been completely rearranged.  Whatever the case, I hope that in good time, once the rivers have settled into their altered courses and the region has had a chance to recover from this meteorological disaster, paddlers will once again enjoy carefree days on these playful streams.

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