Crab Orchard Creek

Ran this yesterday with a Knoxville crew of Russ, Damon, Aaron, and Carl. Our first choice was Island Creek but not enough water. The most recent AWA comments listed here go back 9 years, but the strainer notes still sounded familiar. We putin at the concrete TWRA 'slab' at the bridge. 1 foot was level, 12,000 to 13,000 and dropping. Two, maybe 3, river-wide strainers in the first 1 mile or so, but easy to see early and you have several options to portage on both river left and river right. Barbed wire strands on the river right portage area so just be reasonably aware if wearing dry suit. I can easily see why this is a good intermediate run. The gradient starts off very slow, then builds slowly, has a few (short) flat sections in the middle, and then finishes with even more gradient in the last 1.5 to 2 miles. Locals say (see Kirk Eddlemon's post from 2004) that the last two miles to the Emory (from the church down to the confluence with the Emory) are fabulous at higher water levels. My thoughts of the run: I recall, perhaps 4 to 5 miles downstream from putin, one solid class 3 rapid, we'll call it Studebaker Rapid, with a horizon line and boulders situated to make scouting from the water a bit dicey, so I walked down river right a bit to get a view. This AWA page has a link to Waldens Ridge Whitewater description with a couple of photos of this rapid from downstream; the photos are tagged 'Photo by Stu Thompson' (Studebaker). There was another rapid in approx the middle of the run that had a small island upstream of a small ledge with a large, flat boulder just downstream of the ledge. Wouldn't be a challenging rapid at all except there was a long running across half of the river at that spot. We eddied-out behind the small island and grabbed a few small shrubs to hold ourselves in position and ran it river left side of the hole. This rapid sounded like Allen Brown's comment in Oct 2004-- the very last sentence; I agree with Allen, 'This could really sneak up on you' best defense is have a capable leader and don't follow too close to the leader. The undercut rock cliff rapids, here and there, are easy to see from upstream, I think.
At this water level an intermediate paddler would, as the miles go by, be more and more challenged to move back and forth across the channel to choose the best or safest route all-the-while keeping a weather eye downstream for the next decision/move.I read someone's online account comparing this to the Nantahala but without all of the Nanny's pools. I'd agree with that. Beginners beware, you won't often have time to collect your thoughts because the next move is just downstream and with 8-9 miles you're going to have plenty of chances to miss a few moves and challenge your combat roll.