Toccoa

Kayaked from Deep Hole to Sandy Bottoms over the weekend with friends and had a great run. Thanx to heavy rains recently the river was well over 900cfs...probably closer to 1000cfs. Not much time to relax as the water was moving pretty quick almost the entire way. The 5-6 hour trip most people report took us less than 4 hours from launch to packed up and driving back to the campground....and we stopped for lunch at the suspension bridge. This was my first run on the Toccoa so I'm not sure what it's normally like but at this level it's fast and choppy almost the whole way. You will want to stop at the suspension bridge and check out the rapids downstream. We started just to the right of center as we crossed under the bridge and crossed to river left in order to avoid a rather intimidating rapid on the right. That was as far as we could see from the bridge. There are plenty of rapids beyond your line of sight from the bridge but with this flow all lines seemed pretty good. At this level I don't really think this run is good for a beginner unless you have a really stable boat and someone experienced along to help out. I don't think there were any really tricky spots or dangerous rapids but if you flip the swift current makes it difficult to get to shore, retrieve lost gear or even find a dry spot to empty your boat and get back in again. With that said, the 5 of us had a great run, although, everyone agreed it would have been nice if the flow was down a bit so that there was time to just float and enjoy the scenery. For those interested...we paddled 2 Dagger Crossfires, 2 Wilderness Systems Tsunamis and an Old Town recreation kayak.