Potomac, S. Branch

I paddled Smoke Hole from Big Bend to below Petersburg a couple of days ago in an solo open canoe with 50 lbs of camping equipment at about 2.45 on the Franklin gauge. There's plenty of water at that level; I scraped only minimally, and had a pleasant trip. I agree with a previous commenter that the AW minimum for this section (2.5) is clearly above the actual minimum. This was my first time in the Smoke Hole, and the scenery lived up to expectations, with spectacular cliffs and plenty of solitude in a rich and varied natural place. If you want to see some bald eagles, come here. Maybe 80% of the large birds that I saw were eagles. There are no pools longer than a couple hundred yards, and most are shorter, so you move right along and are always busy with navigation. I personally would not rate any of the rapids above class II or II+ (with the exception of the broken dam, which I call a III just because re-bar makes me nervous), but novices will be very challenged by the large number and occasionally slightly technical nature of the rapids. Landslide (aka King Queen Jack) seemed to me to be only slightly more challenging than fifty other rapids, and I ran it easily after boat-scouting from the eddy on the right at the top. Camping at this time of year has a few issues. By mid-May nearly all the campsites that I looked at were covered with fairly high (mid-calf to knee deep) grass, which might deter anyone who is worried about Lyme disease. An exception is the single-tent campsite at the mouth of Redman Run, but it is pretty badly trashed. Beyond Redman Run one bank or the other is always marshy while the other is steep, so there are plenty of mosquitoes and few desirable campsites. Don't plan to bike the shuttle unless you are ready for a workout. US 220 is curvy and relentlessly uphill, and lacks shoulders much of the way, so it's a dangerous place to be on a bike. Smokehole Road, on the other side of the gorge, is likely to be a better bike route, though it is steeper, and I haven't actually been on it so I can't say for sure.