Soak Creek

We ran this on 3/10/19 starting at the put-in that is shown on this AW page. We approached the put-in from river left (via Jewitt Rd → Sabo Rd). There was an open gate after we turned right at the T-intersection after crossing Dunlap. The land there has been ravaged by logging and we thought we were driving on private logging roads. But according to the TN Property Viewer, the last part of the shuttle all of the way to creek is owned by the State of TN, probably part of the land that was graciously donated by George Lindemann (https://bit.ly/2ERh1Hf). Hence, I’m pretty certain this put-in is on state land and legal!

Too bad there wasn’t much water in this pretty tiny creek, even though the flow looked plenty healthy at the take out. It looked low enough for me to pose the option of bailing to the group. But undoing the long shuttle wasn’t appealing and the fun slide at the put-in was encouraging. After the slide, it was ELF. If Dunlap looks low while enroute, Soak will be too, as they are similarly sized. Tony noted that we had a significant trib coming in from RR about ⅓ mile below. According to the map, that’s Sweeny Branch and it did help the flow, but it was still ELF. There’s a sieve rapid just above this confluence.

The next mile or so would probably be III+/IV with a real flow, with some sections being pretty stacked and potentially dangerous if wood were to be present in the hard-to-stop rapids. A few more feeders came in and for the first time, the creek was actually felt like it was truly running, but still fairly low. Not too much further, the Stinging Fork came in from RR and the flow was now solid medium. Shortly after, Dunlap dumped in a good portion of water and things started to feel medium high and kinda pushy.

The lower stretch of Soak was significantly steeper than I remembered after paddling in on Dunlap around a decade ago. My eroded memory had me thinking it’d be like Whites or the paddle out on the Piney, but it’s definitely harder, steeper and better than both of those. I don’t think you could call any of it solid class IV at today’s flow, but it’s definitely very close to that mark - in several places. If you have good water at the put-in, this stretch will likely be rockin’. The scenery in this part of the run is definitely noteworthy and memorable, but it doesn’t quite stack up to many of the scenic classics that can be found in this region.