Nolichucky River

A few changes after the recent floods: A group of us ran the Nolichucky Gorge Saturday (myself, Jason Weems, Caleb Paquette, Ashley Strickland, Bill Schooley, Hank Mullins and Spanker). The level at Embreeville was 2150 at 6am Saturday. There are some changes in the Gorge to be aware of due to the recent floods. I have a feeling the gauge is out of calibration. It felt pushy to me for 2150. I thought things looked to be 2.8 to 3.0 feet which would correlate to 2500 to 2800. The only thing that bugs me a bit about this is that the difference between the gauge in Greenville and Embreeville seems correct. I doubt both of them are out of calibration the same way. It may be that the rate of decline is so slow that the level at the gauge is closer to the level in the gorge than what normally occurrs with a faster decline. Others in our group felt the same as I about the level. So take the gauge change for what it is worth. There is a large rock splitting the channel above Hungry Jack in Quarter Mile. You have to go right or left. The rock is easily visible from the eddy at ducky beach. There are some other rocks in the eddy formed by the new rock. They were just below the surface. Be careful if you decide to eddy hop. In my humble opinion, the new rock makes this part of Quarter Mile more difficult to run. The rock is going to give rafts a hard time next spring. I have never guided rafts but it looks to me that there is enough room for them to go right of the rock. There is another rock on the river left side of Hungry Jack. The most impressive change is at the perfect wave. Some of the large flat rocks have been moved about 20 feet downstream making a bowl eddy at the wave. It appeared to me the wave is a little more perpendicular to the current. It also appears that the eddy line is not as good as it used to be.