Good day today. Here’s how it went: I showed up at work (early, for once!), clocked in, and went about my normal business of loafing and reading magazines.  After about 30 minutes, one of my esteemed colleagues informs me that I am not scheduled to work today. How nice.
So I decide to head over to Doghaven to see what Jason is up to. When I get there, he immediately informs me that the Tellico is running, with a glazed look in his eyes. So we head up to Wesley’s cabin (a quaint hundred yards or so) to see if he’s up for it. He is, so it’s back to my place to grab my gear. I call Tim en-route and fanagle a free ride from him. But there’s something you should know before you get into a car with Tim at the wheel: he tends to be a little impatient. So when I called him at 11:30, he informed me that he too was planning on running the Tellico, only he had planned to leave 3 hours earlier (hmm…).  And then when we finally left at 1:00 or so, after returning to Wesley’s, having some Ramen soup, rearranging the boats, talking to Randy, and stopping for fuel/snacks/drinks, Tim was in a frenzy due to our tardiness. For the rest of the day, we proceeded to tell Tim to hurry up, and that we had been waiting for him all day (what are friends for?).

    We arrive at the river in a couple of hours, after yet another stop at a fantastic grocery/hardware/convenience store somewhere on 411. I personally wanted to run the lower Tellico first, having never been on the river before, and not having creeked any since the spring, I figured I could use the warm-up. Wes and Jason had no problem with this; Tim, however, was chomping at the bit to run the ledges upstream. After some bribery and a little sedation, we put on for a short warm-up run on the lower. The river was running right around 1.7 feet; a little scrapey, but fun nonetheless. On the lower, we ran several small drops and fast chute/slides, one of which is now renamed “Tim’s Disaster” (a class III-ish double chute with a 90 degree left turn at the bottom)). I won’t elaborate on the incident, you can use your imagination. Now that everyone is warmed up, we head for the ledges.

    We stop on the way up to gawk at Baby Falls, a 15-foot plunge into a deep pool, followed immediately by Diaper Wiper, a nasty, shallow slide. Wes informed us that the Wiper was also know as Cheesegrater or Meatgrinder, if you flip over. Remembering William Nealy’s Zombie Factor #2 (“The time spent staring at a nasty hole is directly proportional to the time you will spend getting trashed in it.”), I picked my line and got back in the van. Wes and Jason discussed river safety, and then we headed to the top. At the put-in we ran into several other K-town boaters, preparing to make their second run. Since ‘Team Vestal’ doesn’t let anyone pass them on the river (according to Wes), we put in and hurried downstream.

    The river was mostly small rapids and slides until First Ledge, a six-foot drop. With Wes in the lead in the big Gradient, Jason and I ran on the right side, boofing the drop and landing flat in the pool below. Tim decided to run down the middle and pencil in, putting a nice crease in the front of his Z and taking a few years from his ankles. The river picked up some speed, and in no time we were at Second Ledge, and eight-foot plunge. Still following Wes’s flawless lines, we all hit a small seam in the middle, and penciled in to the deep pool. The adrenaline level was steadily increasing, much like the stream’s gradient. After a few more small rapids, we were in the bumpy approach to Baby Falls. I remembered the line that we looked at on the drive up. I came out of the last hole, and saw the horizon line. Paddle hard to the left, ride up on the pillow, and… nothing. It’s an interesting sensation being on the brink of a drop that normally I wouldn’t jump off of, and knowing that I’m hurling myself off in a big piece of plastic. My boat arced nicely and penciled in at about 60 degrees, clearing the backwash and resurfacing in the eddy where Jason and Wes were waiting. I had just enough time to rub my contacts back into place and turn around to watch Tim sail over the edge. Now Tim likes to make his own lines, mind you, and he ran the drop right down the middle, landing in the maw of the hole. Luckily, the flow was low, and he pulled a killer mystery move before popping up in the river-right eddy, next to a big floating log. Next over was ____ , from the other party, who decided to run the drop sideways to test his new creek-boat’s freestyle capabilities. After a bit of a thrashing, he was out of his boat. Tim was there next to him, so I figured I should worry about myself, since Wes and Jason had already slipped down into the Wiper. I opted to run it far right, around a large rock, and then back hard left, landing in a diagonal pillow and shooting out the bottom. Tim followed with no problems.

    Next up was Jerrod’s Knee, a long, drawn-out Class IV affair with a nice undercut and a terrific place or two to pin.  This is a very long rapid that requires good water-reading skills, because it is impossible to boat scout the entire thing, you essentially scout on the fly. I used the micro eddies judiciously to regather my head and pick out my next lines. Wes rode up on a big pourover rock only to find the water was to low for his line, just before flopping headfirst over it (Wes later informed us that he can still roll!). Jason and Tim both tested out some of the vertical pinning spots, but without much luck at getting really stuck. I managed to make it through in the big Kinetic with no major problems other that a minor horizontal broach that required rearranging the tip of my paddle to correct (note to self: don’t use carbon fiber on technical creeks). And then, before I knew it, the rapids petered out and we were back at the cars. Jason, Tim, and I had just run the Tellico Ledges with no major problems! Whew. After an extensive discussion of the safety of the trip, we got into the cars and stormed back to Knoxville, with the obligatory stop at a Mexican restaurant for stomach pains. Now I find myself constantly checking the radar and the USGS pages, wondering when that little jewel will run again.