Ratt Report–Days 3 and 4    RattReport–Days 5 and 6

The preparation began in the days leading up to April 1. I knew Kanubi and Wilko were Desperately Seeking Sandy, and Greg Lewis, Dave Becker, and I were trying to decide what to paddle. Late March 31, a flurry of emails among the three of us tried to determine where we’d be. Greg was itching for the Blackwater, but Dave and I were more psyched for the Big Sandy. So we agreed to meet at Little Sandy’s at 9:30. A call to Kanubi’s voicemail showed that he, famed openboater Jim Michaud, and Wilko were planning the same thing.

Pack, pack, pack, up well before the crack of dawn, check the gages one last time, post a couple notes to RBP (rec.boats.paddle–duh) about the Watauga and a Coleman canoe (it was April 1, don’tcha know), and hit the road, Jacko.

I arrived on time and met Wilko. I was anticipating a strong Euro-accent, based on something I’d read on RBP; instead, I found him both easy to understand and well practiced in idioMattic English.

The level was 5.85. Wilko got his virgin run of a Glenn Miller Shuttle, which is surely part of the essential ambience of Eastern USA paddling, isn’t it? As well as saving wearntear on cars, this shuttle would save us precious time, as the Nolichucky was a good 6 hours away. When all were assembled and shuttled, we put in and played our way down to Wonder Falls.

Wilko plays in a warm-up hole. (Click this and all other thumbnail images for a bigger shot.)

Two views of Wilko at the Wonder Approach 

Now, I know Wilko to be a strong, confident, accomplished paddler. But he hadn’t run many waterfalls. Wonder Falls is an impressive sight, no doubt daunting to many a first-timer. He was game, if a little nervous. I set up to show him the line.

Since Jim was standing there with the camera, I tried something I’d wanted to try for a while: running Wonder Falls backwards. Fun, eh?

Hahahaha. I got left, lost speed, and pencilled in bigtime. Observers say I was past vertical upon landing. I took my medicine in the hole below and rolled up. If I remember correctly, Wilko took a picture or two of the bottom of my boat. That’s not especially nice. Had it been a much higher level (~6.5’), by the BTW, it could’ve been trouble. After watching my screwy attempt, Wilko ran it and did just fine. Next I wanted to try it in Wilko’s boat. (How he fits his 6’8” frame in that thang, I’ll never understand.) I carried up on shore.

Dang, I thought my line was good…but, I pencilled again! It took me three tries to roll up. I blame the ill-fitting Diablo. (Rule 1: always blame the boat.) In both cases, the big-ol’ Ratt which newly was adorning my helmet, got skeeert and tried to swim for it. Got his forepaws clear of the shackles, he did, but his hindpaws were still secure. “How will this boy handle Oceana?” I wondered. Having spent a good $2 on him, I could afford to find out.

I tried to discourage Wilko from scouting Little Splat, but he and Kanubi got a look from shore. I don’t know what scouting did for him, because he narrowly avoided slamming into the pinning rock at the bottom. At less than 6 feet, that ain’t where you want to be, bubba.

Wilko at Little Splat

You know what’s next: the Big Sandy’s Big Kahuna.

Wilko is generally pretty safety-conscious, so I expected he’d be conservative and walk Big Splat. But he and the others watched me from the right bank (I nailed the boof as I rarely do!, thank you), and he and Jim headed over. I understand Jim got hung up on the approach, but he aced the main drop, making it look easy. Bummer that I wasn’t in photo-position quite yet. Then came Wilko.

Wilko gets up close and personal with Splat Rock
He wasn’t as far left as most of us like to get, and he got flipped in the hole at the bottom. (I’ve been there, Bud!) I got a shot of the bottom of his boat.

Another shot of the bottom of his boat.

Yet another. Hey, Wilko, how’s yer roll?

You seem to be exploring quite a long stretch of riverbottom! That’s Greg Lewis, giving chase.

...And, finally, Wilko switched to his off-side and rolled up. He said it was his first missed roll in a year.

Not a lot of excitement after that for a while, save a combat roll by Kanubi, followed by a flip and an exit. First Island is the last BigMomma rapid on the Sandy (unless you foolishly go river left at Second Island, of course), and it fooled a few on this day. Dave and Greg, who’d been running the Big Sandy about when Nansen brought kayak designs to America straight from the Inuits, were used to high water and had learned to blow down the middle of this rapid. But they’d heard of a nice boofing line, whereby you miss the pinning rock at the bottom. (This is the line I’d been taught.) Here’s Dave, trying to catch that line. He kinda gets too high for the good boof, and gets shoved toward the center. No clue on what he’s doing with his paddle; he claims to be in “duck-huntin’ position!” In the center, he gets treated to a surf just below the pinning rock.

Wilko, Kanubi, and Jim followed. Like Dave, Wilko got far right too early and was rejected toward the center by the eddy line. Only Jim had what I’d call a decent line. As with Splat, his boof was one that many kayakers would be very happy with.

Kanubi (bad) and Jim (good) at First Island.
Wilko at First Island. Makes a good shot, but you don’t wanna get so close to the camera, as it’s rocky and ugly (even when he’s not in the picture!) over here.

Though the pictures may not depict Wilko’s best lines, he had an excellent day and seemed to love the Sandy. However, I’m not going to get off the subject of this day without mentioning the big-ol’ dent he put in the bow of a new Diablo, on generous loan from Terry Delliquadri. By the next day, by the BTW, the dent was nearly gone. Let’s hear it for the fading memory of polymer chains!, says the Polymer Chemist Nerd.

The drive from Rockville, WV, to Erwin, TN, goes by way of Summersville, so Kanubi pawned Wilko off on me for the leg to Erwin from Summersville. We took a ten-minute detour at the beginning of that drive to give Wilko a view of the Tubes. It was a great disappointment, but no surprise, to see that they’re at work on the project that will soon bury the Tubes. I’m sure Wilko appreciated getting a look at them, which he’d heard so much about. Love them Tubes, gonna miss’em! I don't think the chaotic water found below the Tubes is commonly found anywhere else in the East, except perhaps the Niagara Gorge.

After getting in way late, due to some nasty smells (not related to the Mexican restaurant in Summersville) coming from Dave’s van, we were ready to hit the river in the morning. There’d been heavy rain, followed by sun, so there was a chance that the Watauga was holding water. Good, current info was hard to come by, but the best we had was: 1) 150 cfs, and b) (according to Jim Michaud) that would be scrapy and not much fun. So, despite Greg’s evident disappointment, we headed for the Nolichucky. At the Noli putin, I met Dancewater. I had awakened Cheetatrk at the campground; her truck is hard to miss. They paddled with Wilko all day. I elected to slip in and out of paddling groups, in order to give everyone the fullest possible benefit of their Ratt Points.

At 2000 cfs, I found the Noli to be a pleasant little III+ river, with about three rapids of note and an excellent play hole: Jaws. The line for Jaws wasn’t as bad as the line for Hell Hole, so many of us got a few surfs in there. Sometime after that, we found Quartermile Rapid. I watched Shelly Schmidt get flipped and swim in there. This was shortly after I complimented her on a very reliable roll, so I guess you can blame me for setting her up for bad karma. She got to the river’s edge with Ron Tomallo’s help, but I couldn’t bulldoze her boat over for the life of me. At the end of the rapid, the boat treated us to a rodeo show in a ledge-pourover hole. Shelly had a loooong walk, climbing over the proverbial house-sized boulders for, well, a quarter mile; Ron T. headed upstream after her as the rest of us sunned ourselves, ate lunch, took a two-hour nap…whatever.

You remember Bob Sagett, the guy who used to host America’s Funniest Home Videos? Well, Quartermile Rapid is even shallower than he is! (Didn’t think it possible, did you?) Shelly emerged with a bright-red shiner. I told her it looked like she was experimenting with eyeliner. She, Ron, and I tried to sprint the last 6 miles to the takeout. It was drudgery, but it was kinda fun trying to read the fastest line through all the Class-I and -II stuff for an hour. Shelly, by the BTW, paddled the next couple of days and did just fine. She has since bought a facemask.

Shelly after Quartermile Rapid

Back at the campground, a dispute soon became evident.

First, you gotta know that, in addition to being an excellent paddler, David Hammond is, how you say, a Fiscal Conservative. Compared to him, Kobak likes to burn $100 bills. This manifests itself in, for example, his trying to sneak into and out of the campground to avoid paying the $2 visitor’s fee. The campground owner confronted Kobak with what he considered evidence of David’s trying to park his truck on the grounds. Kobak, washing his hands of it, sent him to Rob.

He yelt, he screamed, he ranted, he accused. Finally, he told us Keel-haulers, “You have 30 minutes to get out of here.”
That’s right: having been cheated (in his opinion) out of 2 bucks, he was willing to forgo 30 x $5 = $150! Now, that’s a man who stands on principle! Or, a man willing to cut off his nose to spite his face; you decide how you want to read it.

Me, I was secretly pleased, because: a) it would give me fodder for embarrassing David in a trip report, and 2) it served as a impetus for moving the Keel-haulers South, where the water was at. We soon got into our vee-hicles and headed South.

Ratt Report–Days 3 and 4    Ratt Report–Days 5 and 6

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Except as noted, all photos by Riviera Ratt. © 1999 RattTronics. All rights reserved. Please don’t use without permission, or you deserve to find your favorite dam-release river unfathomably dry when you show up to run it.