Trip Report – Overflow Creek – USFS Road 86B to Overflow Creek Road Bridge

Subject: Re: Big Creek (Chatooga Watershed)

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Newsgroups: rec.boats.paddle

Date: 1998/04/29

SNIP

: The rest of the run was like a dream - a whitewater dream. Singley's Falls

: waited for another day, and we stayed permanently away from Gravity and the

: Great Marginal Monster.

SNIP

It was the summer of 1978 and the Chatooga had just got the big rain. Several

of us working for NOC and Southeastern had all our trips cancelled, even

Section 3 was too high for a trip that day. We had all heard about Overflow

from the locals, knew there were a few drops still unrun and decided we'd give

it a shot. I'm bad with names and don't remember all the SE boaters but this

was probably the biggest group to hit Overflow up to this point. Some of the

folks with us were John Kennedy in a Mark V, John Regan in a Sauna, Les

Bechtel in a 14' Phoenix baot ??, myself in a Slipper, Chis Spelius in an

NOC saftey boat - a Hallowform, Bill Baxter and Gary Duven both in NOC safety

boats also and I have pretty much forgot all the others but believe Jim

Schelander was also along for the ride and we must not forget Rex Shawberg who

gave us all the scare of our lives at Marginal Monster.

I believe this was the first trip that all the drops were run on Overflow and

the West Fork. We had some great lines and some not so great lines but had

a great group and some great fun. I actually have some great slides and

pictures I haven't looked at in years. My favorite is the one of Les running

Blind Falls in that 14'+ boat. This guy was unbelieveable and now the owner

of Canyons Inc out in Idaho if you ever want a great trip down the Middle

Fork of the Salmon.

By the time we got to the take out all the Hollowforms had about 6' to 1' of

the nose pointed towards Heaven. John Kennedy went through the hole at

the bottom of Marginal and we watched as his stern seams blew out on both

sides. The nose of my Slipper and John Regan's Sauna also would require some

minimal repairs also.

Rex Shauberg had the crash of the day at Marginal. He ran the first drop and

got a little back ender that took him away from the left side of the next drop

and sent him towards the right and the undercut, which at that time had some

tree debris in it. I've got some pictures of Rex while this was happening but

there wasn't much any of us could do to help him until he got away from the

undercut. He, of course, was fine but gave us a good scare.

I'm just curious if any of these earlier posters to this thread were on this

trip with us? Sorry, but I was never great with names when I don't spend a lot

of time with someone. This trip is one of several of my fondest memories of

paddling and Overflow/West Fork will always be a Southern Classic run to me.

The next day it was section 4 at 5'+. A really great break from raft guiding

in the summer of 1978. May get some of those pics to a scanner and post a URL

for anyone who'd like to see some of the pics at a later time. -Bo