Hiwassee

Ryan M. and myself set out to find this majestic waterway as we were told she was flowing at around 1000 cfs.  Being in the area, we took advantage of the seldom flowing waters.  We hiked down a steep incline at wolf creek, up some railroad tracks, and then down the tracks towards turtletown creek.  The hike was terrible, but the water made up for it.  Hollywood bowl and Wu did not disappoint even at a lower flow.  The narrows are definitely something a person should get to experience.  This is a special waterway that should have flow.

Flow appx. 1500.  Low-Medium flow. Friendly Level. My flow estimates are based on the discharge of 4300* cfs subtracting 2800* cfs coming out of the flume line with 2 generator running. There were no mandatory portages for wood that day, although there is always some in the river. The most obvious channels through every rapid were clear.

We had a group of 9 ppl. 3 small rafts (10.5ft or so),1 kayak, 1 open canoe. It was a great level for these boats.

The put in at Turtletown creek is favorable to me, because you can drive down very close to the river, and gives you a half mile to a mile of fun warm up rapids. Although, having a shuttle drive helps a lot, because it's a good haul. Note: Bring a chainsaw for the road in if you can, it would be a bummer to get close and have a tree blocking the road. We cut 2 out.

Hollywood Bowl is fairly easy to recognize as you can hear a louder rapid approaching. It is best to ease into this rapid because there are multiple lines that do not look appealing.

There is a great scout Rock center-right that allows for a good staging point above the rapid.  (See photos) Note: at higher flows this rock is increasingly harder to access, although it still can be done at moderate water levels.

The second rapid comes maybe a half mile downstream of the first, and it is a fun, splashy wave train. The big rocks toward the bottom do not have enough water going over the top to create pourovers at this level.

There is a long wave train closer to the right bank that is just above the confluence to Coker creek. I always liked calling that one 'magic carpet ride'

The narrows section begins shortly after the confluence with Coker creek as it enters on river right. It is a beautiful, intimate stretch with more fun rapids that I remember from my earlier runs a decade ago.

There is one standout rapid that splits a large bedrock island and the main flow goes right. There is a far left creeky line that one raft went through and reported a fun drop. The main channel zig zags through large bedrock shelves, and my Uncle used to call to that one 'Mardi Gras'

Once the narrows widens back up, it is mostly slow water all the way to the Powerhouse.

I'm told that there will be 550 cfs in the streambed 'until further notice' due to repairs, however I cannot find the website where this is announced. We ran part of this section yesterday at 550 and really enjoyed it. Class III is a realistic rating at low water, though this was not anywhere near as low as you could go. We launched below Hollywood Bowl by way of the steep trail from a 4-car pullout. We roped our boats down the first part because all the freshly fallen leaves were slippery. Hollywood looked IV-ish from below.

The existing writeup on this section says it is reminiscent of section III of the Chattooga but I disagree. It is more like a Cumberland Plateau run with ample lovely sandstone, rather than the hard striped schist typical of the Chattooga. The Narrows does have some potholing in the walls and the Chattooga is riddled with potholes.

We were amused to discover that in the slow water upstream from the Appalachia power plant input we could the surf compression waves and make headway going upstream.

We saw a lot of Ruth's Golden Aster (endangered) on the rocks at one of our stops. The forest is mixed deciduous and has great colors in the fall. We also saw a mimosa/Albizia (introduced) growing at the water line. The shrubs growing in the water are alders and they are not obstructing the main channels.

The main negative is the long gravel shuttle. We took out at the put-in for the class II run (less than a mile below the powerhouse and on river right) because we've heard that the gate at the powerhouse is sometimes closed, and that paddlers have sometimes gotten locked in behind the gate. If you plan to use the powerhouse as your takeout and the gate is locked, you just added nearly an hour of gravel driving to your day to take a vehicle back to the other takeout. If your car gets locked in at the powerhouse you are a long way from anywhere and your best option is probably to boat out to a telephone and get someone to pick you up.

There's an effort to get releases on this run and recommend that those releases be scheduled in July-August, when the region is typically dry. It would further be really nice to have clear and accurate information about when the powerhouse takeout gate will be open and when it closes. Overall a lovely run and the long shuttle will be shortened by good gate info.

One last thing. Castillo's Mexican in Etowah is good.

Katie Schmidt and I did an exploratory baseflow run and site visit as we were developing a proposal for flow restoration. We toured the access sites and paddled from above Hollywood Bowl down a few rapids in packrafts and hiked back out to our car at Wolf Creek.

An ideal winter descent at a medium flow of 1,650 when maintenance on the hydro plant led to a partial shut down (3,100 release) and resulting spill.

Big flows on the dries dished out big fun. Lots of surf, and still plenty of eddies. This was a trip that included French Broad River Academy students and staff, and AW staff, as part of a project exploring options for flow restoration.

The last drop of Hollywood Bowl

This is the line just left of Hollywood.

WARNING:

When putting in at the Turtletown creek confluence be aware the train track is active and runs regularly. Do not cross the train bridge to put in. There is not enough time to get off the bridge if the train comes around the blind curve.

I was at the Turtletown confluence with the Hiawassee Dries a few weeks back. A construction crew is working on the water diversion tube there. Due to their construction equipment and scafolding, they are locking the gate at 5pm in the evenings when they go home from work so don't get locked in. They said the gate would be wide open all the time once their construction is done.

I think this run is defintely worth checking out at least once. The wicked, but easily avoidable, boils in the Narrows were unlike any I've ever seen before. Hollywood Bowl is a long, farily complex rapid with a potentially nasty ending. The next rapid produced a swimmer. Those are by far the two biggest rapids on the run. Everything else was III-III+ at 2300 cfs (flow in the dries, the powerplant was broken down and offline)

It looks like there is a bridge over the river just below the Appalachia Powerhouse on the USGS topos on this page. There is a bridge, but it's only a foot bridge - no cars.

The gate down to the powerhouse (river left) was open - we parked there and took out without incident. Using the put-in for the Lower (traditional) Hiwassie makes for a very long shuttle, but it sounds like you may not have a choice depending on what kind of mood the gate-keepers are in.

I ran this back in the summer of 2005 after a period a heavy rains. Putting in at the 68 bridge did lead to quite a bit of weaving through a flooded forest. After that, the river opened up into some class II/III boogie water until Hollywood Bowl. I would advise boaters to scout this one as it is definitly full on Class IV. There are two possible routes. I chose the far left option because it looked the least sketchy and ended up getting windowshaded a good bit in the hole. Before I could roll back up I got my head busted by an undercut rock and had to get stiches later. I was in a playboat and something bigger would probably be fine but watch out on that one. After that there were probably another three or four miles of boogie including the awesome sight of paddling through the narrows. I would recommend this seldom run adventure to anyone but I would advise you to use caution. Some of the rapids out there are long and complex and especially on Hollywood Bowl or the lead in a swim could be bad. I hope this helps!

Access on river left is a hit or miss thing. We had no problem getting to the river on the left at the public parking lot near the power plant.

DO NOT TRY TO TAKE OUT ON THE RIVER LEFT SIDE OF THE RUN. USE THE REGULAR HIWASSEE PUT-IN AS YOUR TAKE-OUT. We tried to use river left, but the road was gated before the final turn to the plant below. We sent two people down to see if they wouldn't mind us parking there. They were less then pleased to see us there at all, much less park. Also, after a rain, the FS road is very muddy and almost impassible in spots. This makes the river left take-out a NO GO! Use the regular Hiwassee put-in on river right as your take-out. I would also suggest, if there has been a recent rain, avoiding the FS roads AS much as possible and taking the very long shuttle around the mountain. Again, if I havn't made myself clear. There is NO TAKE-OUT ON RIVER LEFT.

At 1000 cfs this was a fun run (1000 cfs in the river is 3000 cfs from the dam). All in all it was easier than the Ocoee with fewer rapids and had plenty of trees. The rapids were not huge and certainly had nothing of Gauly stature or even resembled the Grand Canyon. I thought it was a fun class III run with some alternate class IV lines in certain drops. I agree with the posting that this is a one or twice in a boating career run, because other things are running. I have seen this run with water in it probably 6-12 times in a decade plus boating career.

Finally got on this one Saturday May 17, 2003. According to the TVA page the damn was spilling over 5000 cfs. This made for some fun whitewater. We made the mistake of putting in at the TN 68 picnic area. This lead to three miles of ducking thru and under branches vines, surfing off rootball pillows, and finding the occasional dead end of trees. Its was kinda neat for a bit, then got really old going thru all of the trees. Next time I'm using the Turtletown put-in.

Finally we came to the first drop. A riverwide falls of sorts. Its not really a vertical falls, but a really wide broken ledge with a number of routes, and a couple of strong holes to be avoided. This was best scouted from the center rocks. We ran the right of center lines. There was a cool boof on the bottom right. There was also a hero line on the left thru a solid hole.

Below this was a solid class three wavetrain with a few hidden holes. Then a cool rapid with a big hole at the top, a narrow channel at the bottom, and moving van sized boulder in midstream. From above it was scary looking, and with a bit more water would turn into a massive riverwide hole. After this things calmed down for a bit. Lots of class 2+ boogie water, kind of like the upper ocoee above the olympic course. Then we came to the quarter mile of rapids that was full of the boiling, percolating water...very cool stuff. Textbook Neeley style funny water that tried to squirt my tornado a few times. After this was a long wave train on the right with a lot of good surfing.

The last big rapid is marked by an island mid stream. The hero line is on the right, but one in our group spent some time in an undercut on that side. The right line was still a strong class 3/4 reminicent of double Z on the new.

All in all a cool run, with some of the best big water rapids in the SE this side of west virginia. Most of the ten big rapids are better than anything found on the ocoee.

Typical Whitewater on the drys.
Long wavetrain with a Huge rock bisecting the bottom. Eddylines on both sides were interesting. At higher flows this would make a riverwide hole. Some of our guys boofed off the rock after we found out the bottom was clear. There is a boater in the pic on the left side of the rock
A long cool wavetrain with some great surfing. Obviously the waves are big enough to nearly hide a 10 foot long open boat.

This is why you should not put in at the Highway 68 bridge.

TN Upper Hiwassee Huge Fun & Water today New

Forum: BoaterTalk

Date: May 17 2003, 3:53 GMT

From: oletncreek

Tn area has just last week had a 30 yr flood so chk AWA page on Upper Hiwassee and dam was ripping. This is a drys section like on the NEW River in WVA(water bypasses stream bed in a pipe).I had run this section in the 90's a few times but never this BIG!(FRIDAY)! The first big rapid I call Hollywood Bowl has a big ledge drop hole @ the bottom w/ alot on pullover holes on the horseshoe shaped ledges as they drop down. We found a rock eddy to get out an scout @ top in the middle below an island. The must make moves worked for me but my less experienced friend washed over a pullover and then dead right into the hole @ bottom. His sub7 backendered up and flipped and he swam in the long wave train. I picked my way around and cheated the bottom hole in the woods river right so I could chase his bod and boat.After recovery the rest of the run is boat scoutable and the shore is in the trees anyway so no shore to walk on. Unlike the regular Hiwassee this section squeezes down from 100yrs wide to less than 20yrds in some rapids so all kinds of boils and funny water swirling around. Cool but scary like the bottom of rapids on the GRAND CANYON. A section called the NARROWS has walls on both sides and very funny water w/ a hole to trick by.

By all means run this section - avoid HELLHOLE and see a new run w/ big water that only happens every 30 years. The OCOEE and such will be there all summer!

Oh the main pain is the shuttle- LONG! We had my girlfriend run shuttle so we didn't have to go back for truck.The forest service road off hwy 30 towards Ocoee to Lost creek campground is the most direct route but the 17 miles took 1 1/2 hr to run from bottom to top. You can go around to Ocoee-turtletown but very long.

From: Gomer@EmpireStateOfTheSouth m

at the flow under the TN Hwy 68 bridge (or Czech the TVA site to see if the Appalachia dam is spilling). Do not put in at the dam or Hwy 68 since you'll be boat-bushwhacking class I or II for many miles. The best put-in is off the USFS road that runs between Turtletown and Reliance (TN). In Turtletown follow the USFS signs that direct you to Appalachia Powerhouse and Big Lost Creek campground. The put-in will be the point that you first come down to the river. Be sure to hike up the railroad tracks for 1/4 mile for the first good rapid. The take-out will be the Appalachia Powerhouse (follow signs). The rapids are Ocoee-like but not as numerous. Of course there have been some high flows lately--15K last Thursday--so make sure you are comfortable on the Ocoee at similar levels. One place of note is called The Narrows--a wall of broken potholes. Although not a challenging rapid, the strange currents through there make it interesting.

It runs more often than the once in ten years you mention; I'd say a half dozen or so times a year after heavy winter rains. It's a run you'll do once or twice then move on to other things when the conditions are such that it's up. Other creeks in the area are Coker, Turtletown, Big Lost Creek, and Wolf Creek.

Also, it's also the only other location--the Ocoee being the other--where the rare Ruthie's Golden Aster is found.

Hope this helps.

Gomer

A base flow exploration of the Dries by packraft

To see the full-sized version of this photo, click here.