Dukes Creek

To start with, the Steamers are very happy to neither be injured nor sitting in jail. On Thursday we did in fact complete 17 laps on Dukes Creek near Helen, Georgia. Our put-in was the Forest Service road for Ravens Cliff Falls. If you drive past the Ravens Cliff trail-head there is a parking area on the left side of the road. The creek is only about 20 feet from the car and there is an established trail to the creek. Our take-out was the confluence of the two creeks at the base of the falls. There is a boardwalk here on the river left with a trail that goes to the Dukes Creek Recreational area. Instead of following the trail to the recreational area you can continue straight and end up back at the put-in. I am guessing the river distance from put-in to take-out at .6-.7 miles. The hike back up is maybe .8-1 mile. There are 9 major drops in this section. My topo map has 40 foot contour intervals, but shows this to be around 220 feet of gradient. If someone has more accurate tvf for this run please let us know. The prize for Georgia is potentially at stake and we want to make sure the tvf is accurate.

How did we end up here?

I paddled this section in the fall of 1993. I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to go with me, so I went by myself. My girlfriend took photos. I ran everything except for the last two rapids. During the next few years I paddled Dukes three times. Around 1995 large strainers choked up the big waterfalls and I stopped going. I hiked this section again around 2001 and the strainers were still there.

This past Wednesday Bowman and I drove to Dukes to see if it had cleaned up. We spent the day climbing every drop and swimming every landing spot. We removed 8 small to medium trees. The estimated flow was 30 cfs. At this point I knew everything would go except for the last big drop at the boardwalk. Returning home we got Townsend and Jonathan fired up. They were skeptical, where would 30cfs be enough? Dukes is where.

Thursday

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