After running the whole river and partying hard-core the previous day & night, I decided I was sufficiently hung-over to make another run of the Big South Fork Gorge. The gauge had dropped since then, and the river was running around 650 cfs when we put on. Luckily, the lovely ladies had volunteered to drive the horrific shuttle from the confluence to the O&W railroad bridge (about an hour one-way!), so all we had to do was drive to the put-in, fall out of the truck, and crawl the ¼ mile down to the river. Jason, Tim, Scott, and myself were the only ones to brave the frigid water.

     Now, I have heard a lot of opinions about the Big South Fork’s water levels, specifically that the lower the water gets, the harder the rapids become. Of course, rapid difficulty is in the eye of the beholder, but I can vouch that the rapids become exponentially more technical with lower water. This was perfectly demonstrated when we reached Double Drop, the first of the big three. The top drop was a four-foot plummet over a shallow ledge that is normally covered with water. The hole at the bottom of the top drop was signifigantly weaker (no flying back-enders), and the recovery ‘pool’ between the two drops was a bit bigger and more calm. The second drop was also very steep and boney, and after studying it a bit, I elected to scrape and bounce down the far right side, almost against the bank. Jason and Scott were waiting in the eddy when I arrived, and we turned to see Tim plop over the second drop sideways, his purple Outlaw sticking in the diagonal hole like a bug on fly-paper. Luckily, he sculled his way out of the hole, rather than being side-surfed into the nasty pinning spot that opens up on the right below ~800 cfs.

    We then made our way around to the top of Washing Machine, and eddied out next to a small rock just above the brink of the drop. Gee, I don’t remember Washing Machine being this steep, I thought to myself. Scott volunteered to go first, and he dropped over the lip, his helmet swiftly disappearing. A split-second later, his yellow EZ came rocketing skyward, doing nearly a clean back-loop before crashing upside down in the outwash. Tim and I eyed each other suspiciously as Jason repeated the move with much the same result, his multi-colored ProZone flipping backwards and landing on the rocks to the left of the drop. By this time, I’m thinking ‘go fast, boof hard’, because there’s obviously a powerful hole at the bottom. So I peel out from the eddy, paddle as hard as possible, come up to the edge, and…. wow, the river drops about six feet into an irregular, deep hole. I tried but couldn’t manage to lift the bow of my boat, so I penciled into the deep hole, and was immediately back-endered. Only I expected it, leaning back and riding it out as a stern squirt before falling over sideways. I rolled up to see Tim come crashing over the drop and do a similar move. We decided to rename the rapid ‘Crapshoot’, for that’s what it is at low water.

    Next on the hit list is the El, the infamous rapid that is a mystery at any water level. Scott took the lead again, and up above the main drop managed to find a very shallow ledge hole, get stuck, and flip. At higher water levels this hole isn’t really even noticeable, blending with the crashing froth to form the entrance. But at 650 cfs it was a separate, steep drop with a sticky hole. He rolled up and had a clean run through the rest of it. Learning from Scott’s line, the rest of us skirted the upper hole and plunged into the curling, swirly confusion at the bottom. No problems, other that Scott’s lip being split from a meeting with his paddle whilst upside-down. Ouch. We tended to that, then headed downriver.

     After stopping to surf and enjoy the sun a few times, we entered the canyon. Jason spotted yet another nasty, shallow ledge-hole, and eddied out right next to it, to point it out to us. As he shouted “Hole! Don’t go there!”, Tim slipped into the maw and got flipped. Luckily it spat him out, and he snapped upright, eyes wide. I skirted it on the right, thankful to have someone else to point out nasty things. After some water, granola, and a few more steep, shallow rapids, we were at the O&W railroad bridge, our takeout. O&W rapid still had quite a bit of strength to it, funneling the entire river down to about 20 feet and dropping it over a series of boulders. I ran right down the middle, through the biggest waves, and then made the tough ferry over to river-right behind the bridge piling. We huffed our boats up the steep incline, gratefully greeted the generous girls, loaded up, got into some dry clothes, and began the slow, muddy drive back to civilization. Just another day on the river. As we drove out of Oneida towards I-75, ominous black clouds loomed to the west. The adventure wasn’t over yet…