Gonzo Shoals

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"That horizon line should not be seen as ominous..."

Stay in the current and let it take you left, 'til you see a small ledge to your right. Cross that ledge and point downstream, letting yourself drift over closer to that big rock in the middle at the top of the kind-of stairstep ledges. Be just to river right of the pillow in the middle of that ledge, angled left. Push through it to go left of the line of rocks that end the pool below this stairstep and run the ledges down.

Start thinking right. Get on the right side of the line of rocks going down, passing just river right of the final large rock (good luck to tap this puppy with your paddle), then start looking right. Make your move through the two fairly obvious gate rocks with long eddies behind them, or just after the second one.

Playing: That rock in the stairstep ledge can be an eddy to slingshot you to ledge hopping on the other side. Also, there are any number of eddy hops below those rocks that define that pool after the stairsteps and before the final ledge.

To the right of the final ledge is a good place to hang while playing in the hole created by that ledge (watch for rafts!), and down to the left of that final big rock there are a bunch of nice smooth flat surfing waves for the hard boaters.

previous : Staging Eddy next : Broken Nose

I love to hear from my readers, but I get a lot of mail. If you're writing to set up a rafting or other outdoor adventure trip in the southeast Tennessee area, contact the folks at OAR , my favorite outfitters.

This is a part of the Virtual Ocoee pages of Dan's Whitewater collection in the home pages of Dan Lyke , reachable at danlyke@flutterby.com