Chattahoochee

The river is great I have been down there 3 times this month. I would recommend to just go to waveshaper island and play at waveshaper and good wave. If you want to do this go to the end of 12th street and use the parking garage. the garage is free on the weekend

~900cfs

another test

test2

test

During a shutdown of river flow, a picture of Tie Snake with only residual flow present

Mason getting his loop on at Stumpy Hole

This picture was taken from the pedestrian bridge that was 14th Street.

This picture was taken during the first Columbus Whitewater Games. The Jackson clan along with other world class paddlers made an appearance and competed with us. The paddle monkeys are a group of local Columbus paddlers. Mostly play boaters, they will show you a good time when you visit their playground.

Clay Wright in work out hole above Wave Shaper Rapid.

Monkey Wrench is a hole that is created at higher flows. It must be caught on the fly. A quick recovery is required if you flush out of the hole. Cutbait rapid is just below this feature.

These steps are a couple hundred yards down stream of the island and wave shaper. It has been dubbed rehab because if you miss that roll this is where you must swim if you want to get out of the river. During high releases it is a hard swim. Once you manage the swim and climb out you are given plenty of time on your long hike back to ponder why you missed your roll.

This is the rooster tail just above the hole in Cutbait.

Rick Thompson surfing Good Wave. This wave gets much larger when levels are 6000 to 10000 cfs. The wave starts to wash out about 14K cfs.

This is a view of the hole at cut bait at about 9000 cfs. Professional paddlers such as Hunter Katt have played in this hole at this level.

This was at 9000 cfs.

This is the rooster tail that is formed at about 9000 cfs in Cutbait. At this level this is pushing a class 4 feature do to the hole following.

At this level there are river right and river left sneak lines. The preferred line is to run river right in the rapid. Boof the rock shelf and run the boil line. This helps avoid the hole in the right side of the rapid. This hole is somewhat retentive and rolling up here will place you against rocks. Please scout this rapid as it changes greatly at various release levels.

A rather straightforward rapid at lower levels. Preferred line is straight down the tongue.

Taken November 2013 during the River Games. EJ Jackson & Clay Wright amongst others are in the picture after play boating in Cutbait hole.

This is at 4000cfs. A fairly mild release level. Levels can be as high as 13000 cfs on the extreme side. I advise scouting all rapids due to the ever changing river level. At slightly higher levels a nice wave train is created which leads you in to The Great Wave.

GPB article today about new and exciting kayaking below Phoenix dam due to low water opening up coweta falls region. (see link)
http://gpbnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/low-water-levels-great-kayaking.html
if anyone has info locally please post thinking about a road trip.

Kirk front surfing the good wave at approximately 7 ft.
Chris surfing under the lights. the level was probably a little under 7 ft.
There is a stadium light at the powerhouse that shines right on the hole.

An ok level - it gets much better and retentive. Here the level is probably going down causing the wave to rise and break. It can be very dynamic.

Eagle/Phenix Dam is runnable and has been run. I'd post the video on here but I don't want to encourage anyone else to do it. I ran it when there was just enough water going over to get a clean move off it. The danger is that there are only a few safe landing zones where there are not rocks at the bottom and it's impossible to judge where they are from the top. I had someone on the island below to line me up correctly. We measured it at 22ft. The play spot on river right is good at optimum levels, but very rarely do they run a good level consistently. With the normal release you have to be there to catch the water rising when there is a short interval when the hole is good, but then quickly washes out. At a good level, it's a nice spot where you can spin,cartwheel,blunt, and loop. ( See loop video above). You can predict when the release will start by looking at the usgs gage at 280. The release times generally run in patterns which are apparent in the 7 day graphs. There is a smaller shallow hole, as pictured above under 'cartwheel hole' which is pretty fun in a short boat. The big hole in the middle line, known as the cut bait hole, at the normal release is very trashy and should be avoided.

Van Atkins chattahoocheeoutdoors@charter.net

Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 12:00 PM

To: 'Paddlers4Christ@yahoogroups.com'

Subject: RE: [Paddlers4Christ] Chattahoochee at Columbus

Looks like you have gotten interested in something I have been wanting to do

ever since a couple Columbus, GA paddlers put me onto that spot. I was

leading them down Potato Creek when they told me about it and they said they

often play it after work in the evenings when they release. They said the

flow does not usually come up to a good playable level until after 5 or 6

PM, but then again that info was based upon the drought years we have been

having before this year; this year I am sure the release is a different

story with more water being released more often. The gauge to look at to

check and see if it is running is at

http://ga.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv/?site\_no=02341505

http://ga.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv/?site\_no=02341505&agency\_cd=USGS

&agency_cd=USGS which is located at US280 which is just south of this park

and play spot. I have been down there a couple times to check it out and

possible put-in and take-outs and to look at the dams they are talking about

removing. There is an awesome river walk they are developing on the

Columbus side that is going to go several miles all the way from well below

the last rapid/the play spots clean up to the dam at 'Bibb City'. That

river walk they are developing looks like it is going to be a real family

friendly environment for family walks or bike riding. You could bring both

your boat and mountain bike down to this one. The parking and put-ins for

the park and play spots are right now on the Phenix City, AL side to the

north of the Dillingham Street Bridge and south of 13th Street. To bad the

river walk and the park-and-play put-ins are not on the same side of the

river. The rapid there is called Rock Shoals and the dam on the upstream

side at the top of the shoals is I believe called the Eagle Phenix Dam. I

ended up finding three different places to park and then carry the boat to

the base of Rock Shoals. The next dam just a little further upstream is

like approximately a 12 foot high dam and then there is the City Mills Dam

further upstream. Then another couple miles or so further upstream is

approximately a 35-40 foot high dam that they generate electricity at around

the 'Bibb City' area of north Columbus. It would really surprise me if they

take that dam out at 'Bibb City' but I imagine there is some really good

whitewater behind it. Further yet upstream above US 80 is a substantial dam

called Oliver Dam. Probably zero chance that one is coming out, but we can

always dream. :-) When I have seen the play spots at the base of Rock

Shoals I think the flow was around 10,000 CFS. The Eagle Phenix Dam is at

the top of the rapid. You can paddle up to the bedrock at the base of the

shoals and carry your boat up the portions of the bedrock that is out of the

water and either run a very creekish type of run on the far river right, a

high volume flow run down the middle with a huge hole at the bottom, or a

high volume run down the far river left that ends in some good size wave

train waves at the end. Looked like several of those waves in the wave

train were very playable. I would like to find out from the locals what

that center hole is like before I pop into it or at least paddle out there

and get right to it and study it for a while before I jump into it. Since

the Eagle Phenix Dam is your basic low head pour-over type of dam, the

danger here is the water could rise on you very quickly when they start

releasing water from the dam at 'Bibb City' so be careful if you decide to

hike up the shoals itself and have an idea when they tend to increase the

flow amounts. From the times I have checked the internet gauge, I have seen

it go from 1000 to 10,000 CFS very quickly. If it looks low and you do not

know when they will be increasing the flow, then the safe thing to do is do

not climb up on the shoals. At 10,000 CFS there are definitely play spots

to be found; my guess is at 1000 CFS there is nothing there worth the drive

to get there. Let me know if anyone else has any other info. Thanks,

Mark Hicks <><

Good looking playspot!! Are the dams runable? Whats the word on dam removal??

The water looked pretty clean, I'm guessing west point lake traps the nasty stuff drifting down from atlanta.

The hole is pretty good at this level. You can cartwheel and loop pretty well, with ok blunts on the outside shoulder.
Once the good hole gets blown out, this shallow hole to the river right of the other hole comes in. It's shallow, but with a short boat you can spin and cartwheel left and right.

A really forgiving hole at this level. You gotta try it out

Matt trying to enderfly..

Front loop in front hole. Trick to this hole is to catch it while the flow is going DOWN!!

2nd or Good wave