Tellico / Ocoee weekend

By Clay Wright

With temps in the 80’s and rain on the way, Tara and I headed over to the Tellico with the Holden family to enjoy some ‘summertime’ fun. The rain was scarce and the level held just around 1.4 but the warm temps and sunny skies made it a fun trip anyway and it’s the perfect place to try out the new Heros!

Each of the ledge drops felt a bit steeper since it was hard to carry speed over them, but the Hero proved it’s reputation as the most stable craft on the water – even when the ‘boof’ proved elusive. In fact, while several ‘boofs’ were missed, not a single combat roll was had all day. The lower level made the ‘in between’ rapids not as fun but all the named drops were just as clean as ever.

Sunday morning came sunny and still dry, so I switched out to my All-star and headed out to the Ocoee for the classic ‘welcome to Summer’ paddling day and to see all our Chattanooga friends without their full-face helmets on. Met up with Mark and Owen from Jackson Kayak and also our buddy Vic who’s been hanging with the 5 ‘ O’clock crowd’ playing up here in Rock Island.

The Ocoee river is a true classic, with so many little features to hit along the way we actually considered staying at Slice n Dice all day instead of heading on down. The loops out of the top hole were just too big and easy and the lower hole gave up lots of ends and the occasional tricky-wu. But Flipper, Hell Hole beckoned so down we went. Flipper’s ‘black loop’ proved a formidable goal but even when you miss it you get to throw fat right blunts off the curler and then try to ‘pop up’ into the little eddy just above that stages the loop set up. Got to Hell Hole about 45 minutes before the water shut off and played it up till it was just about dry. That top hole gets really fun for air-blunts, cartwheels, and loops shortly after Hell Hole is gone and by then there wasn’t even a moments wait between rides.

So here I am, stuck in the SE, and loving every minute of it! Hope it’s warm and fun where you are too.

Clay Wright