Back in 1996, The Ocoee River hosted the Olympic Whitewater competition (Info linked) . In order to do this, one quarter mile of river bed was modified to qualify it to be a world class slalom course. According to the linked site above: “Rocks precisely placed and cemented in place make this a world class slalom course. The channel was narrowed by two thirds to increase intensity of the rapids and flow. TVA currently adds a few hundred cfs to the Olympic level to improve rafting on this section of river. CFS stands for cubic feet per second. These changes to the river created the steepest and highest volume Olympic whitewater venue ever used. To this day it also retains the honor of being the only in-river whitewater course used for the Olympic games.“

After having done the lower sections with groups the previous 2 weekends, we wanted to go back and run the Olympic section. Having had great experiences both times, we went back to Rolling Thunder River Company

This time, our guide was Joe, or “Shoeless Joe” according to him. He claims that he never, ever wears shoes. He has found all of the places in town that allow him to come and go without requiring footwear. It turned out that Joe is best friends with our first week guide, Tristan, and there were some excellent stories shared. My personal favorite as Joe told it, was when Tristan was guiding a group with a larger gentleman on board, who fell out of the raft and lost his shorts. He somehow also lost his Personal Floatation Device. Tristan was relegated to the task of pulling the naked gentleman back into the boat, and the only place to grab him was his rear end. Joe was laughing hysterically as he talked of Tristan having to grab this poor man by the naked butt cheek to haul him into the boat. It turned out that Joe is from Birmingham, and attended a school very near where my own children attended. We knew some of the same people, and it was fun to make the connections!

For the first little while on the Upper section of the Ocoee, it feels very similar to the lower section. I’d say in some spots it even felt less challenging. That is, until you reach that Olympic section between the bridges. Oh BOY!!! Please enjoy the photo progression of the spot where we hit a 4 foot (that I would have sworn was 8 feet) wall of water! Shannon and I are in front this time.

Joe did an exceptional job of directing us so that we all managed to stay in the boat. This was not the case with all of the other boats in our party!

• Side note – there is quite a spectator crowd here. We took a quick break before we ran it so that the guides could communicate their plans for what order we’d run the boats. Joe told us that we’d see a striped awning on the left side of the river, and if people were clapping and cheering wildly, that wasn’t good. “The quieter the crowd – the better the run”

We had a blast running the Olympic section! Once we got back and got ourselves dried off and warmed up, we headed out to find lunch. Joe had recommended his favorite place, Meraki Souq. The best part about this place, was the turkish coffee poured by the owner, Mathew, who’s Lebanese heritage is the inspiration for his restaurant. He fixed us a lamb plate with grape leaves, hummus, fresh pita, and olives that was delicious. We took it to go so we could eat it at the Buck Bald Brewery, down the street in Copperhill

Here is a quick 1 minute youtube video of the process:

We decided to drive the one hour Northeast to the Nantahala Outdoor Center, or NOC for short. We wanted to rent a raft and try running some beginner rapids on our own and this was the best option we had to try it. Although we had brought camping gear along, it was raining when we arrived, and we were pretty tired. Also there was an Alabama football game that we wanted to see and it didn’t seem to be playing on any public TV’s close by. So we opted to stay in the NOC’s own Dogwood Lodge, and this turned out to be an excellent option. As it was early September, and “late” in the summer season, there were only a couple other folks staying here. The Appalachian Trail runs straight through the NOC complex, and they also offer a “basecamp” stay in one of their budget-friendly bunkhouses.

Once we got checked in, all of the restaurants were closed down, so we opted for a dinner of apples and granola bars. The next morning, however, we made up for it with a delicious full breakfast and outstanding coffee at River’s End Restaurant, which is opposite the Big Wesser Pub.

The Nantahala Outdoor Center offers a full range of guided and un-guided white water rafting (info linked) experiences. As I mentioned above, we were after a self-guided rafting experiencing. On our shuttle to the put-in, there was only one guided boat, and the remainder were either self-guided rafters, like ourselves, Kayakers, or single-raft “duckie” paddlers. We had a fantastic time on our first self-guided white water rafting experience! The rapids on the Nantahala are classified as level II and III. At the end of the commercial run, is a challenging waterfall which I am very surprised to find out is only a class III. Naturally this spot is where the photographer is stationed. Here are a few of ours:

I’m proud to say we kept it upright and didn’t spill ourselves out! We also had a lot of fun afterward, standing on the observation deck at the falls, and watching people who did spill out. * Caution – may cause anxiety! (they’re all fine. There were safety boats present)

The whitewater rafting life is for us! Can’t wait to do it again soon!