Have you ever noticed how when you are in the unpleasant process of getting worked on a river that you don’t feel the water or hear anything? I figure this is your subconscious brain, your critter brain, taking the controls from your cumbersome conscious human brain that got you in the mess in the first place. It was my critter brain that watched my bow climb higher and higher as my micro shot out of the West Fork of the Tuckaseegee in Western North Carolina. If I could have thought, I would have declared my stupidity in forgetting I wasn’t in my freefall anymore and needed to lean forward to land a 240. Maybe I would have thought about the impending hole thrashing or thought “Yee haw, now this is creekin!” Instead my critter brain pirouetted my bow back under me and ferried me hard away from the log sieve that it somehow remembered was there. But alas, the physics surpassed all I had and I awoke from this trance precariously wedged above a very dark place into which much water went.

The morning had begun with, well I can’t remember much before my too late cup of coffee bought at daybreak in Sylva. Danny Mongo was driving and we were heading up the West Fork of the Tuck, or to be more accurate, the dry creek-bed that was once the West Fork of the Tuck. We met the sheriff and Leland Davis at the trailhead almost immediately and I thought, “OK Kev, let the first flow study you are helping to run begin!” After some tense moments I realize through my early morning haze that he was worried about some fisherman that were camped out down near the creek. After many more moments I realized he was waiting for me to volunteer to go warn them about the water that would soon be rushing past their tent.

They had no reason to expect water in this stream. Water had flowed past their tent site 5 times in the sixty-odd years since dam construction upstream, and it hadn’t rained in a while. But water was going to flow today. American Whitewater had spent the past few months making sure of that. John Gangemi (American Whitewater’s Conservation Director), Bunny Johns (Consultant for Duke Energy and Renowned boater) and I had been working to secure releases and devise a plan for a whitewater flow study on the West Fork of the Tuck, as well as the main stem of the Tuckasegee and Upper Nantahala rivers. My first task in the east as American Whitewater’s new Eastern Conservation and Access Associate was to carry out this study with Bunny and a handful of regional creek boaters.

After the obligatory fisherman warning hike, we returned to find the rest of the crew there: Bunny Johns, James Jackson, Ken Kastorff, John Miller, and Shane Williams. There were also a couple Duke Energy folks there that would check with us whenever we were off the water. We decided we should walk upstream and watch the water come over High Falls, a two tier huge waterfall. Before we reached the waterfall we smelled a terrible odor, billions of tiny bacteria screaming out, “Our time has come, oxygen, life!” With years of flow deprivation sediment had built up in all of the pools and was suddenly suspended in dark brown water that had just spilled from a crystal clear lake. The roar of the falls fallowed and… did I mention the smell. I had told Leland it would be a blue warm-water run, and maybe one day it will be.

The falls were powerful and beautiful and huge. I looked up and thought “This is what you do my friend, you make the water flow like it should.” It felt right, and I eased into my job fully believing in what I get to do for a living. And now it was time to paddle.
I had seen video of the first drop with 100 cfs and figured the 250 that we had now couldn’t be too different so off the 35 footer I paddled, following John Miller who had done it at the lower test flow. The drop was a steep bumpy slide down the left and a steeper double drop on the right. Leland pioneered the right line with style, James walked around this one, and the rest of us opted for the left line. Then it was into the woods. Due to the lack of regular flows, birch trees had encroached into the channel and grew on even the smallest of islands. Virtually every piece of wood that had fallen into the river for a very long time was right where it had fallen, although some wood did begin to move with the rising water. The rapids were a mix of class III-IV slides and boulder rapids in the section below the falls. There was enough water to paddle this stretch but we scraped our way down the slides and got stuck a lot in the boulder rapids. There was a lot of wood in the stream and we used every possible technique of getting around, over, and under it. Even with the brown stinky water and overhanging vegetation, the scenery was great. Sometime before we met the landowner, James hiked out.

The West Fork Gorge is currently a wild and beautiful place, and will soon be full of houses. Several new houses were already there and there was a new clearcut down to the river that will provide someone a nice view. Feeling responsible for the frown on her face, I thought I should go talk with the landowner standing on her deck on the shore. She didn’t seem to like the idea of a healthy river flowing past her house, and thought we were trespassing, but we talked for a while and I paddled off pretty pleased with how it had gone. I have no poker face on a river, I smile, which might have helped. I also told her it would not stink like that for long. I know that helped. There were a few fun rapids before the shrieking began.

I ran through my memory of every sound I have ever heard in the forest, and then in my life. “Butchy” I thought. Butchy was our annoyingly loud parrot that died during the blizzard of 93 and is still buried in our freezer. Hey, the ground was frozen, what are ya going to do! Anyway, sure enough as we rounded the corner there was the guard parrot sounding the alarm on the deck of a house. The owner came out and waved and the bird immediately shut-up. More fun rapids and slides took us to the first bridge where the Duke folks stood with some lakeside homeowners that were smiling while they documented our descent.

Below the bridge the run changed significantly. The rapids became more distict and less boney. We entered a small but beautiful canyon of polished granite. This section was a hoot. The wood continued but was less frequent. One rapid in particular made life interesting. A 5 foot drop into a hole followed by a riverwide log sieve which was followed by a zippy little turn into another hole.

We took out tired and feeling a little abused, as creeking will sometimes leave one feeling. We had lunch and filled out surveys to describe our runs at 250 cfs, followed by a focus group discussion. We got to choose the flow for our second run. How cool is that? It was like ordering from a menu! We decided that 250cfs was possibly a minimum acceptable flow, but far below optimal. We picked 350cfs for our afternoon flow. We were all worried about the wood at a higher flow but knew that even higher flows would one day flush the wood out of the steep section. We also knew that we were choosing flows that could be released for all of the 30-50 year license of the dam. That was a big responsibility, and somewhat tired and reluctant, 6 of us decided to return. Bunny, who consistently had better lines than the rest of us on the first run, opted not to do the second run.

Due to time and energy constraints we had to video less, and move quickly on the second run. As we slid our boats back in the water at the put in and peeled out we knew this was going to be a totally different experience. The big drop was smoother for most of us, and the slides that followed were fun and not scrapey. The rapids that had been slow bang-fests in the morning were just nice fun class III’s. We were all smiling immediately. We got into a groove, the serene and focused dance of a group of experienced creek boaters eddy hopping. I have always marveled over that seamless rhythm. The rhythm was occasionally interrupted by the realization that much of the wood was eerily just below the surface and some was mobile.

On the morning run my thoughts were of nothing but the ecology of severly impaired rivers like this one, the safety of the group, and logistics. On the second run I paddled. The run was pushier but was more fun, easier, and safer. There were even some great holes to play in. We all exchanged surprised smiles and nods of appreciation as we eddy hopped down the run.

We crossed under the bridge in anticipation of the canyon below. We got to the log sieve rapid and ken paddled over the first drop. Rodeo ensued. Ken had an impressive surf as Leland jumped out of his boat to help. Ken made it out on his own though. I was pretty comfortable with the move so paddled off the drop next without worrying too much, or enough. I know Danny and maybe someone else walked it and Leland ran it without incident while I sat in the log sieve in a defensive and tenuously stable position.
John Miller came out of nowhere and performed one of those great hand-of-god rescues that would make most folks cringe but just makes creekers smile. He threw my paddle directly into Leland’s hand and carefully helped me up on to the bottom log. My heart rate had yet to go up a beat. It is that critter brain again. Leland threw my paddle 20-30 feet and it landed firmly in my outstretched right hand. It vibrated from the shock and I smiled as I negotiated the remainder of the rapid. Any other rescue technique would have shown me that dark place I mentioned. I was with the right group of folks. Ken finished the rapid by punching into the bottom hole. Rodeo ensued, again. Danny entered the rodeo too. We named the rapid “high turnover” because of the rocketing backenders and high percentage of flips it provided. Without the log sieve, high turnover would be a straightforward class IV, with the log sieve it was V.

The rest of the canyon drops were all fun and had cleaned up. We paddled them fast with big smiles. We all looked up at the stunning side waterfall as we floated past. Then Shane had a bit of a problem with some tree branches. They stretched horizontally into the river to make a mission impossible laser beam kind of configuration. You had to paddle hard, duck the first one low, ramp over the second and duck some more. Somehow through all this Shane ended up about 2 or 3 feet above the river, upside down, hanging across two branches. Show off. Again John was in just the right place and was there with that hand of god business again. He threw Shane’s paddle into the bushes, pulled Shane down out of the trees, grabbed the paddle from the bushes, ran down the creek, dove, grabbed onto Shane’s stern, pulled him into an eddy, and gave him his paddle back. Where did Bunny find this guy?

We came off the creek glowing and smiling and re-energized. We filled out surveys again and talked about our run with James, Bunny, and the Duke folks. We were pretty confident in saying we hit the optimal level right on the nose. Any less would be scrapey, and very much more would take on floodwater characteristics.

I think I was ranting some eco-babble about how we had just brushed the streams teeth but we needed a big release to take it to the dentist. The excess sediment, overhanging vegetation, trees in the stream channel, and abundant randomly distributed wood were all classic signs that this stream was seriously screwed up by the elimination of flows for so long. I wanted to know if it was possible to really get some water through there so I asked the dam operator how much water they could release. He said, “we opened the gate 10 inches for that release, and it is a 20 foot gate.” “Oh” I said, “that might do it…”
With the removal of a couple pieces of wood and the natural redistribution of the rest with a pulse flow, this run could be a very well loved stream. It would offer a big drop and five miles of high quality and very unique class III+/IV creeking. There is only one undercut on the whole run, and it is in a safe place. Everything can be walked, although we ran everything. We characterized the run as somewhere between Spring Creek and the North Fork of the French Broad in difficulty. Releases on this run would offer a great training ground for intermediate paddlers that wanted creeking experience and would offer jaded creek boaters a fun and reliable new stream to do their thing on. I agree with Shane’s comment, “At 350 cfs, I would do this on my day off, definitely.” It really is a gem.

As the 5 ½ year process of dam relicensing continues on the West Fork of the Tuck continues, American Whitewater will work hard to secure recreational releases for you to enjoy and to help the river act like a river. Duke Energy has been very cooperative, the parrot didn’t scream at us on the second run, and we didn’t wash that landowners deck away, so the possibilities look really good!

For more information contact Kevin Colburn, American Whitewater Conservation and Access Associate, phone 828-645-5299; Email: <Kevin@AMWhitewater.org>