2010-08-22 from Robert Butera
Toccoa from Sandy Bottom to Lake Blue Ridge Flow: 1200-1500 cfs Lake Level: 1656' Date: Sat Aug 21, 2010 The Toccoa basin often has isolated stationary storms that bump the river up quickly. The gauge on Saturday morning looked like 600 cfs and holding, like this:
8/21/2010 11am (ET) 610
8/21/2010 9am (ET) 444
8/21/2010 7am (ET) 641
8/21/2010 5am (ET) 615
8/21/2010 3am (ET) 258
8/21/2010 1am (ET) 176
8/20/2010 11pm (ET) 181
8/20/2010 9pm (ET) 183
8/20/2010 7pm (ET) 181
The gauge is sometimes flakey, so I discounted the 444 reading and just assumed the river was holding steady at 600 cfs, likely due to rain the right before. The put-in at Sandy Bottom is adjacent to the gauge. Based on past experience, I consider 400-800 cfs to be a perfect play level for the Toccoa - the rapids are meatier but the rocks are still exposed for lots of eddies and features. I packed the playboat. I decided to forgo all the club trips and take advantage of this presumably perfect level to see if anything interesting was uncovered by the lake drawdown. As we were putting in, we were met by Debbie and Doc. They had paddled from Deep Hole and were taking out at Sandy Bottom. I was quite surprised when they told me they had made it from Deep Hole to Sandy Bottom in 2.75 hours. That seemed fast to me, given what I thought of the river level (see the end of the story). They decided to join us. Debbie paddled a Torrent and Doc a Wilderness Systems rec/touring boat. Again, I'm not used to paddling with non-whitewater boats, but they did great!
The river moved. Lots of waves, almost no eddies in mid-river or riverside. It reminded me more of flood stage than 400-800 cfs. In particular, I did very little playing since the mid-river eddies were gone and the stream velocity made it hard to catch anything on the fly. The waves were a lot bigger than usual, and the ledges had at places transformed from lazy drops to meaty holes. Anything Goes was a blur. It definitely felt faster! We got to Party Rock in less than 45 minutes, it seemed. Most of Party Rock was a river wide hydraulic. The "main line" along the right bank skirted it, and was easy to hit, but the consequences if missed would suck. Literally. There was also a tree in there. Due to the nature of the flow over the rocks on the left, the portage was also hazardous (rocks and a hole). I decided that the main line was easy to hit, and that even a flip would likely be beyond the hydraulic. Our suspicions were confirmed when two tubers ran the main line without even trying to hit it :) We all decided to run it. The rapids below Party Rock were a blast - lots
of wave and ledge crashing. I wish there were more eddies to play - the stream velocity made it pretty hard to catch any wave on the fly. BFH rapid was the biggest. Clay got tossed going over the rock (not usually a pourer) that defines the top drop on river left, and in an amazing show of whitewater sit-on-top skill, actually climbed back into his boat and kept on paddling. Then we hit the "winter section" - the part of the river submerged in the summer. Instead of the fun sloping ledges I was used to, there were sizable waves and significant flow, more like the Nantahala than the the Toccoa. The rapids (all class II) continued and continued. We then got to the section where the flat water begins at normal winter lake levels. The class II ledges and pourovers continued. The water kept on moving, but the rapids subsided briefly as we approached Tilly Bend. Tilly Bend is where I often take out in the winter, and it also marks the highest point upriver that the powerboats usually travel when water skiing in the summer. I have long suspect that the depth
change here might be significant, based on "powerboat folklore." You can tell you are there since the Forest Service land ends on river right, and houses with boat docks appear. So imaging my surprise when we rounded the corner at Tilly Bend. The next 1500-2000' of river was a 5+ minute wave train! Huge evenly spaced standing waves, some as tall as five feet. Most were glassy smooth - very few even crested. I have never paddled a wave train that long on any river. Having this wave train in front of lake houses with dry boat docks made it even more surreal. If you have ever paddled the Potomac in Maryland, it reminded me of the Little Falls section above Little Falls rapid, only bigger. The tallest waves were comparable to Double Trouble on the Ocoee. At this point the other 3 boaters were way ahead of me. I didn't do any playing, though I noted that the latter end of the wave train had flat and sometimes recirculating water in the flow outside of the wave train, so access for play is possible. We then paddled in moving water for about 5 minutes and did the 180 turn to paddle up Persimmon Creek. Instead of a creek to paddle up, we had a 10 minute slog through the muddy lake bed to our cars. If you do this run, dress for ankle deep mud! All in all,
an interesting day. The river was meaty, and at this level Party Rock and BFH rapids easily met the textbook definition of class III - the continual flow between features greatly increased the difficulty. And it sure wasn't 600 cfs like I thought. When I got to the takeout, I checked the levels during the day, and found that my hunch was correct - it was NOT 600 cfs. The gauge level after we got on? 8/21/2010 7pm (ET) 1,626 8/21/2010 5pm (ET) 1,695 8/21/2010 3pm (ET) 1,411 8/21/2010 1pm (ET) 907 We put on at 1:45pm and got off at 4:30pm. So rather than the 600 cfs I thought we were paddling, it was likely 1200+ cfs while we were on the river. When I was driving back at 6pm I stopped at Party Rock (we had ran it around 3pm). The Party Rock rapid had totally changed to what it is typically like in flood stage (main line is flat water, rocks become pourovers, "little Nanty" section below becomes a serious of holes). The wave trains at Tilly Bend were quite interesting. I don't know if they were caused by the extremely high river flow, some
aspect of the bottom profile of the river there (it is channeled in the mud at normal 200 cfs flows and I suspect that the lake depth changes significantly there), and/or the fact that these wave are located where the the whitewater meets the flatwater. As the lake recedes and the Toccoa drops back to "normal" levels, I am really curious what this stretch will look like. You can hike to the start of this section (Tilly Bend) in about 15 minutes from a trail that starts at the corner of Shallowford Bridge Rd and Dial Rd. There are 3 trails - take the one that heads the "most downhill" and followings the gully towards that stretch of river.
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2009-12-05 from Robert Butera
Lake drawdown. The TVA will be drawing down Lake Blue Ridge at the end of next summer for a major dam repair project. It may start in July, August, or September, but by Oct or Nov of 2010 the lake will be drawn down to an elevation of about 40' lower than the usual winter elevation. Looking at navigation charts of the lake, it looks like this would result in a flowing river at least until Tilly Bend and likely past the bend as well. I expect it will be spooky, lots of sandy slides with ill-defined flow, and even more channeled than the usual winter stretch below BFH before the flatwater starts about a mile above Tilly Bend.
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2007-12-30 from Robert Butera
I have started logging the TVA streamflow data for this reach (the gauge at Dial, GA). This is experimental (for example, if the power goes down at my house, the server will power off until I reset it, so some readings may be missing) right now, but provides some sense of historical information. The data is uploaded whenever modified (typically every 2 hours) to a tex tfile located at http://www.butera.org/toccoa/gauge.txt
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2007-12-30 from Robert Butera
Ran from Sandy Bottom to Tilly Bend on Sat Dec 29. We put on early, not knowing how long the water would hold out. Due to the drought, the lake was at below winter levels of 1662.5'. Flow was 270 cfs when we put on (at the Dial gauge) and about 230 cfs when we took off. At this lake level, there is flowing water all the way to the takeout! Below BFH (where the flatwater begins at full pool) the river becomes flat and shoal like, with lots of small/medium size rocks in mid-river -- it reminds me of how low-water snow-melt rivers look out west. This must be some sort of river/lake effect, because after this very shallow shoal like section (which is a few hundred yards long), the "normal" river returns -- as you get closer to the lake, there are fewer rocks and more mud/dirt, and eventually the river channels through the sand/mud/dirt base, a lot like a marsh at low tide in a coastal area. Also, the exposed dry river bed has a healthy growth of ground cover, since it has been exposed since last June or July. The rapids in this section are all class II- or less and
nothing of note, though they all have a "slide" and "swirl" like quality to them, as if the river hasn't yet made up its mind how the rapids should flow yet. Solid low-water-reading skills can save a lot of time getting hung on rocks in this section. Be careful getting out of your boat at the takeout -- you can sink into the mud halfway to your knees.
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2007-12-30 from Robert Butera
Ran Sandy Bottom to Tilly Bend on 30 Dec 2006. Lake was at 1668' (annual minimum) and flow was about 315 cfs on the TVA online Dial gauge. This is a good minimum for this run. Here are more details on the section below Party Rock (takeout on Aska Road). Shortly after going around the bend away from Aska Rd., there is about a 1/2 mile of large class I (easy II) large boulder garden rapids paralleling the neighborhood known as Flat Creek. Lots of fun. The previously mentioned BFH rapid needs a better description. It consists of two consecutive 3' or so river wide ledge drops. The meat flows along river left in front of the house -- the drops are pushy and clean, and can be paddled through by anyone who can stay upright. The meek can sneak on river right, where the ledges become a little more slide like. After this we had about another 20 minutes of paddling before the flatwater. The rapids below BFH are typically swirly and have a sort of slide-like continuous but shallow gradient -- a mixture of river bottom sand and the occaisonal ledge. The feature I noticed most were several gradual well-formed surf spots -- grabby but friendly to novices. Nothing more than class II. As before, the paddle to the takeout was 15 minutes, and the takeout hike was 15 minutes (except for the person with the 17' canoe :) Based on what we saw and the obvious lake line" on the shore looming above us as we paddled, I would paddle this section up to a lake level of about 1775'. For historical and current lake levels, go here: http://www.tva.com/river/lakeinfo/op_guides/blueridge.htm
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2006-05-28 from Robert Butera
Followup to my "self/hiking shuttle post on Dec 31" Reran this route early this morning to see how the rapids changes and how long the flat water paddle is at a full lake level. Lake was full (elevation 1688) and river as at 357 cfs. Short version: don't do it. Long version: The lake backs up right up to the last notable rapid (BFH - one in front of Big F$%$ House). This rapid is less fun than in the winter as well, maybe due to less gradient. I estimate that the flatwater section would have taken 35-45 minutes to paddle - luckily a fisherman with 3 kids offered me a ride so I hopped in his boat and gladly accepted. We had a hard time finding the ATV trail to hike out at Tilly Bend, due to all the spring/summe growth (it's a lot easier to see with no trees!) Also, the lake level at this point is almost up to the trail, not a long scramble up granite blocks as in the winter. In summary, I'll run this in the winter and maybe when the lake is half full, but I'll pass when the lake is at full lake level. BTW -- tons of debree from the local flood-stage conditions of last week sitting in the lake. The fisherman who gave me a ride in his powerboat hit a few floating limbs.
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2006-05-21 from Robert Butera
Wasn't planning on paddling today, but a night of pounding rain in Blue Ridge left the Toccoa at over 1800cfs this morning. I had never paddled it above 1200 or so, so I did a paddle from Sandy Bottom to Aska Road. I told the family I'd be back soon - they were surprised how soon I was back.
In a nutshell, at this level the whole river is class II boogie water -- few calm spots. It felt like the Nanty, only faster, and there are no eddies or rocks to speak of - the only eddies I saw were usually formed by strainers. Very pushy, and non-stop wave trains. The rapids above and approaching Anything Goes were particularly squirrely boogy water, and anything goes was transformed into a pushy series of drops into waves. I'd still call this a II+ at this level, though if you swam you'd never catch up with your boat. Lots of surfable waves if you could catch them on the fly.
Definitely stay alert - a few normally placid sections with mid-river rocks had holes created where the rock should be. The take-out rapid at Party Rock was a totally different creature. The top two drops (see my picture) were washed out and replaced by mostly boogie water (still a drop to be made). The rapids below were totally transformed -- what were normally the eddies all the way down on river right each became a hole, and the line all the way down was a non-stop wave train. I'd rate this one a III at this level due to the must-make lines below the first two drops that otherwise we'll get you eaten by a hole. While interesting, I don't think the river is the most fun at this level. I still like it best at 700-1200 cfs when there are still rocks showing causing river features and creating eddies.
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2005-12-31 from Robert Butera
What's between the Aska Rd takeout and the lake? See other post from today on where to take out and how to self-shuttle. Welander/Sehlinger/Otey vaguely mention in their book that Class I/II rapids exist below the Aska rapid when the lake level is low. I decided to find out. They are not quite correct -- there are a lot of rapids, and I think 2/3 of them would exist at a full lake level. Conditions today were 350cfs and the lake level was 1668', about 20' below the nomimal full summertime level of 1688'. Some winters the lake is down over 30'. Continuing downriver after the Aska rapids, the river turns away from Aska Rd. for good. At about this point, the river is continuous shoals, rock gardens, and occaisonal ledges. This continues for I suspect over a mile. All Class I/II, but a couple are definitely class II and likely deserve names. These stretches are roughly in the area of two roads with private riverside residences: Flat Creek River Road and later Trout Lane. Don't try to takeout here -- it is all private property. As you advance down this section, the houses become larger and the No Trespassing signs more numerous. The biggest drop of note I will name BFH Rapid, due to the monstrous sprawling house that overlooks it (it is also notable by the 3 large rocks across the river) that mark this drop - it is about a 2+' ledge with a lot of options. Shortly after the houses end, from here until the takeout you are alone -- not even the sound of hunters. Around here visible signs of the lower lake level are evident (you can see the "true" bank looming above higher and higher, with a large sandy beach on both sides of the river). Several more I-II rapids and shoals continue here that are likely underwater in the summertime. From the point the current stopped (due to the river basically becoming the lake), it was a less than 15 minute paddle to Tilly Bend. This access point is closer than the Persimmon Creek mentioned in Sehlinger/Otey (and much less flatwater to paddle).
Barring some minor butt scraping, all of which is avoided by sharp river reading, this stretch, in my opinion, is just as fun as the "usual" section. Some of these rapids would be a LOT more fun after a rain when the river is pushing 700-1500 cfs. For comparison, I would compare this entire run to the Cartecay through DNR: there are more rapids here than the Cartecay, though most are of a lower challenge than the named Cartecay rapids. One final note: In 2009, Lake Blue Ridge is scheduled to be dropped 85' for dam maintenance. This
section would definitely be impacted, likely positively.
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2005-12-31 from Robert Butera
Self Shuttle! Today I did my first self-shuttle of the Toccoa. It was painless, and makes the river twice as fun, experiencing the rapids below the Aska road takeout. See my other post from today about those rapids.
Park at the intersection of two dirt roads: Shallowford Rd and Old Dlal Rd. This is where you take the right turn towards Sandy Bottom if running the usual shuttle from Aska road. From this point, you can walk about 0.6 miles downhill along Old Dial Rd. towards Sandy Bottom and put in when you get to river level, just after the USGS gauging station. The takeout is a spot on the Toccoa known as Tilly Bend. There is a sharp bend in the river - you will suddenly see houses with boat docks ater the bend. Take out before the stream that feeds in on river right. There is an ATV trail above the river, and it is an easy 0.4 mile uphill walk back to the aforementioned intersection. The trail at this point parallels the river -- walk downriver and the trail will turn right and paralllel the aforementioned stream. It is probably a good idea to take the 10 minute hike from the intersection down to Tilly Bend to know what to look for. There are several trailheads near this intersection (including the Benton McKay) -when facing the right side of the road, take the rightmost one that heads down, initially paralleling Old Dial Rd. If you head along a ridge you've taken the wrong one!
The hike back up to the car was 13 minutes, and the flatwater paddle after the rapids stopped was under 15 minutes. Total trip time from leaving the car to arriving back was 3 hours, including a 20 minute lunch stop and very little river play. The hike back, while 0.4 miles uphill, is not steep -- easier than hiking out of Woodall on the Chattooga, even if longer.
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2005-11-25 from Robert Butera
Did a sub-freezing run in the early AM today @ 266 cfs, from Sandy Bottom to Aska Rd. Definitely a minimum level, though good river reading skills can avoid most of the butt scraping. Not much play, many of the possible surf spots are wimpy and too shallow. One item of note: the first drop at the Aska takeout gets a lot more squirrely at this level (even though the entire run, IMHO, is overall more difficult @ higher levels)
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2005-08-08 from Robert Butera
Drove by the takeout/rapid on Aska road this evening when a good rain had the river pushing 1500 cfs. At this level, the takeout develops a some nice surf waves. The first drop at river right becomes a pushy current, while mid river (where the rocks usually are) a nice surf wave develops. The chute at river right really slams into the partially undercut rock 30-40' downstream. At this level, the entire run here (from the parking lot to a few hundred yards downstream) bumps up to a II+.
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2005-05-22 from Robert Butera
There is a convenient but oft-overlooked put-in between Swan Bridge and TV Campground. Cross the bridge @ Van Zandt's store (by the old Dial Bridge) when heading from Aska Rd. to Newport Rd (over bridge) to Dial road. Head right (upstream) on Dial with the river on your right. In less than a half mile you will see an empty gravel lot right after a bunch of houses with parking for a few cars and river access. This lot is at the edge of Forest Service land (after you put in, you'll see a "Leaving National Forest sign" on river right). Expect 30-45 minutes of paddling along cow pastures until things get a little more moving by Toccoa Valley Campground.
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2005-05-22 from Robert Butera
Paddled on Friday 20 May 2005 after a night of rain and hail, and river was over 700 cfs. Still relatively easy, but a lot more fun in the sections mentioned above. Some of the usual near-bottom scraping sections flowed a lot nicer (like the mini-rapid/shoal by the green house lurching over the river about a mile before the takeout). The usual rocks full of locals at "One for the Road" at the takeout were mostly underwater. The first drop felt easier at these water levels (less of a drop to it).
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