Usually floods are considered a bad thing with the loss of life and property yet it is awsome when you can observe the power of nature unleashed without the damage.  Mountains are a great place for this, there are no flood plains where a river bust loose from its banks covering miles of land no instead the water is channeled through a tight gorge where rapids grow quickly in power to the point of a raging ground rumbling monster.  The Ocoee river is one such river meandering through the Cherokee National Forrest in the southeast corner of Tennessee.

Dams upstream control the amount of water released on the Ocoee river.  In normal times when the weather is a little dry or a little wet TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) guarantees 1,200 CFS (cubic feet per second) for commercial rafting.  When the rain falls, when the area is having a particularly wet season TVA has to let the water go.  Commercial rafting cuts off at 3,000 CFS this is the point which you can’t pay to go down the river.  There is no legal limit that a private boater can go down although you don’t see anyone on above about 10,000 CFS, above this level the river goes from class 5 to class 6 the highest level on the scale of rapid size.  You take a big risk of death rafting above this level which did happen once when people were on the water and TVA pulsed the river up to 14,000.  A raft flipped and one of the private boaters drowned.  Some friends all raft guides were out there at the same time I saw their raft going down the river empty.  They all swam a mile or more before they could make the bank.  Miraculously everyone survived.

For three days I drove along the river from Georgia where the river changes names from the Tacoa to the Ocoee all the way across Polk to where it dumps into the Hiwasee river.  It had rained and rained day after day and TVA had to let the water go.  In Copperhill the river was brimming the banks just one more hard rain and the town would flood.  Copperhill did flood in the early 90’s after 10 days of hard rain the river was estimated at 50,000 CFS.  Guides at the time hiked into the river gorge, the stretch that is rafted commercially, because the road was flooded.  They tell tales of whole trees root ball and all getting recirculated in monster hydraulics the size of houses.  On day three driving the river I saw the Ocoee at 30,000.  I stood on the bridge at the end of the Olympic course site of the 1996 whitewater Olympic games.  The whole course was class 5 and 6.  Water was touching the bottom of bridge the whole thing was vibrating.  Every once in a while water would pulse over the bridge, I would duck behind a metal sign shielding me from the wave.

In twelve years of running the Ocoee the most unique day of rafting occured this year just a few months ago.  It was a two trip day which started at 1,500 CFS and steadily rose through out the trip.  I watched a Kayak sitting in the tunnel at Goforth creek start floating as the water rose.  by the end of the first trip we loaded the raft in a deluge.  Thirty minutes later we put on the river again at 2,000.  The river was rising noticably as we stood on the launch ramp in the continuing down pour.  Most rafting customers don’t notice or think about the rising water but every guide knows it’s a different river at different water levels.  Every guide there was getting their mind ready to focus on the task at hand because the river was getting more technical by the minute. 

By the time we got to Double Suck about a mile and a half down stream the river passed the 3,000 CFS level.  All the feeder creeks were pumping in more CFS.  The guides regrouped at the halfway point at Goforth creek where an hour earlier the water had been an inch in tunnel and rising was now three feet deep and rising.  At the edge of the tunnel where a gentle trickle enters the Ocoee a class 6 hole now existed.  There was no where to eddie out rafts strewn the bank guides holding branches to wait for the 8 boat trip to regroup.  The trip leader waited a few minutes to decide weather to take off the river or not as the water rose 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 CFS.  Finally he gave the go sign a paddle held straight up in the air.  I had three 12 year old kids the youngest age allowed on the river commercially and 2 out of shape middle aged parents.  We all tightened our belts and set out to finish the trip.  We were rafting in a flash flood.

All the rocks that are normally out of the water were long gone out of sight.  The funnels from a quarter mile wide to a few yards wide at Table Saw and Diamond Splitter.  We all knew this area would be challenging.  I knew from experience the way to run Table Saw would be to enter right and charge left.  If you entered left you would be screwed by a diagonal hole at the end of the rapid.  When I hit that hole I thought I had made a mistake.  I disappeared into the white fuzziness of churning chaotic water.  The boat stalled but hole let me go.  I looked back to see less experienced guides enter left running their normal line.  Some of them slid into that diagonal hole then heads bobbing down stream.  One, two, three rafts it took a mile to recover.

Above the last two rapids Hells Hole and Power House we did first aid on the injured as the river steadily continued to rise.  Hells Hole was washed out only a speed bump remained.  Power House would be a monster.  We got the go sign so I charged in.  I crested the first wave and looked into the biggest hole I’d ever seen my customers were like “Oh my that’s big!”.  We then crested that hole and looking into a house size rapid about 15 feet deep.  Down down we went then up and up the raft almost flipped vertically.  We were done with the big stuff it was a gentle float to the take out.  Two rafts flipped in Power House the river was pumping so fast they barely recovered by the take out a half mile down stream.  I found out the river had hit 7,500 CFS.  It was a rare treat to experience to commune with the river at such a powerful level.  That night I could still feel the memory of the river in my muscles.