French Broad River Section 9: Barnard to Stackhouse – 8/14/05

Rich, Larissa, Lucas and I headed for the French Broad, figuring there would be plenty of water for a good run. The gauge reading at Newport was 2900cfs. When we got to the take-out at Stackhouse, Rich thought it looked higher than 3000cfs and when we asked at the put-in, somebody said 4300cfs at the other gauge. The rain had been stronger than we expected. This trip would be Larissa’s first time running it in her kayak and our first time running it in the tandem canoe. Lucas had run the raft at this level and Rich had never seen it this high. There was a pretty good crowd at the put-in, so we weren’t the only ones who thought it would be a fun day.

The first mile or so of small ledges, waves and boogie water was a nice warm-up before we got to the bigger rapids. We practiced our eddy turns, peel-outs and ferries, getting used to the boat in the weird water. The warm-up went by much faster than the last time we were out on the river.

The diagonal ledges were still visible. The eddies behind them were not very easy to stay in without clinging to the rocks themselves. Higher water made The Doors rapid easily run on river right and river center. Some of its eddies were friendlier than others. We ran through a couple of longer, bouncy rapids, alternating between eddy hopping and wave hopping, before coming to the two most difficult rapids on the run.

The Entrance to Big Pillow and then Big Pillow rapid itself were a bit closer together because of the water speed. I sort of remember Kerry running us through a big hole on river right on the last trip because of an undercut rock on the left route. Lucas and I watched Rich and Larissa ferry in front of a clamshell rock, and I wondered if that was the undercut. Lucas and I opted for a slightly different route, and we ended up sliding sort of sideways on one rock and barely missing another before finding the tongue that led us the rest of the way through the rapid. We caught an eddy above Big Pillow rapid itself and decided to scout. Rich decided he wanted to take the entrance channel on the right and then catch the big dynamic eddy on the right. We were thinking maybe catch the eddy or maybe just stay on the right of the wave train beside the Big Pillow rock, still avoiding what we thought looked like a second hole. We ferried out high before entering the rapid. We hit the latter line easily and sure enough, there was a hole where we thought there was. We dodged it just to the right. Rich and Larissa each took different lines. Rich hit his line. Larissa caught an eddy above his big eddy, then dropped into his eddy and then got spun a few times trying to get out of the eddy. Lucas and I felt even better about our line, because we had both expected that eddy to be very swirly. She made it out ok – nothing like nerves as a good motivator – and caught the eddy where we were.

Some more eddy hopping and rock dodging brought us to the flat stuff and then the big waves above the usual lunch spot. We waited for the rafts to get through before running through the meat of the big waves. The waves were easily as big as what I remember them being in the kayak, so they had to be bigger. Rich made fun of us later for taking the raft line, but that’s the most fun way to go! The surfing wave beside the lunch rock was beautiful, equally as popular as the big wave itself. We surfed, we lunched and we surfed some more.

After lunch, we came to a river-wide ledge below some class II boogie water. We decided to scout the ledge and enjoy the show that a larger group put on running the ledge itself. The biggest entertainment was watching a couple in a tandem sit-on-top with canoe paddles bumping rocks and swapping sides with their paddles. The lady in the front flailed a few times, sticking her leg out on one side and her arm out on the other. They made it to the bottom upright. We took a creative line there, too. Trying to hit the far left chute, we caught an unexpected eddy. I was thinking, I hope Lucas remembers to lean as we spun into the eddy. It worked out ok. We peeled out and hit the chute we had wanted to hit.

Our only swim came on the sneak around Pinball. The approach was congested with rocks disguised as waves as we came to the far right chute. We should have been a little farther right on the drop itself, or I should have opted for the low brace instead of the offside air brace, or Lucas should have gone for the high brace sooner. None of those things happened, so just after we dropped down from the ledge, we found ourselves swimming beside our boat. Easy recovery, one that I much prefer over swimming Pinball itself.

The last big rapid of the day was the rebar/Stackhouse rapid. We eddy hopped our way down river left and eventually worked our way right to a big eddy above the last few drops. After a discussion over the difference between the left and right sides and the difference between left and right, we decided to take the easy right drops to the takeout.

In these last few weeks before the move, we’re ticking the “I want to…” summer trips off the list. Overnighter, check. French Broad tandem, check. Next weekend is my adventure with Leslie. Then one more adventure weekend before it’s time to go. Right now it’s kinda fun, but I think sooner rather than later, it’s going to be sad. I’m sure we’ll see some of these rivers again, but it’ll be a little while.