Greeted by fall colors, blue cloudless skies, and showers of autumn leaves drifting from the forest canopy, we began our journey on Amicalola Creek shortly before midday. Our class II paddler decided not to come so we switched from the Upper to the LOWER section of Amicalola Creek, which is usually considered to be a III-IV run, although on the easier end. We ended up with a group of five consisting of Steve Smyth (our guide), Augie Westerfield, Betsy Westerfield, Brian Swafford, and me.
The stick gauge at the put-in showed .9 when we launched. This is probably equivalent to about 1.2 on the USGS on-line gauge. Some of the group hiked a little upstream from the put-in before launching so we could run a couple of extra class II drops before starting. I had never done this before and was a little intimidated by the gradient, which is slightly higher than the Middle Ocoee, so it was good to have a warm-up. I can definitely confirm that the riverbed drops away precipitously after you pass the bridge below the put-in.
The first major rapid you come upon is Edge of the World, which is usually rated a class IV. Unfortunately there is a giant log right in the middle of the normal line down the left side and there is a lot of very fast moving water going right under it. It's scary. We watched Roger Nott and Chuck (? sorry, can't remember your last name) running frighteningly close to the log in their open boats. Augie and Steve decided to take an alternate but very, very rocky sliding line down the middle of the rapid. Brian, Betsy, and I decided that the water really was too low to go down the middle and portaged. I can slide down dry rocks without going to the river. I have to confess we lost track of Betsy after a bit but she somehow ended up at the bottom of the rapid, although the portage is not as easy as it is sometimes reported. Brian and I found a pool to launch into at the bottom of the first mess of drops and got to run the second part of the S-turn and the last 4 or 5 foot ledge to get an adrenaline kick. We basially turned the class IV into an excellent class III.
After that the drops become slightly easier, but the gradient continues to impress. The level was low enough to not be pushy but the class II and III drops are really compressed in that section and the riverbed drops away at a sometimes alarming rate. It's a very compressed pool-and-drop section.
A couple of the class III rapids have huge horizon lines with the river not visible below for quite some distance downstream, and when you do see it, you realize that it is 6 or 8 feet below your current level. This makes you feel like you are going over a waterfall even though in most cases you can see a twisting line at the last minute as you approach the lip of the drop, and you realize the drop doesn't happen all at once, but is broken up in to two or three smaller drops that are close together. It's a little unnerving if you are more accustomed to the high-volume class III rapids of the Ocoee, which don't lose elevation quite as fast and have large wave trains to show you a line. At one point I remember looking back upstream, which is to say uphill, and mentioned to the others that we had just run one very long class II-III rapid, perhaps 300 yards long consisting of numerous ledges and drops. It was good stuff.
After a few miles of pretty good class II-III action, mostly of the pool-and-drop variety, the gradient begins to calm and most of the rapids are I+ or II-, and then it levels off to flatwater. You finally reach the confluence with the Etowah and if you paddle hard (we did) then you can reach the takeout in 25 minutes or so. It's a very long run, one of my books lists it at 9.7 miles and I can believe it. We didn't play much and it took us over 6 hours to run, although we did spend an awful lot of time at Edge of the World scouting. I definitely want to go back when the water is high enough to open up a line that isn't so close to the log (or wash it out entirely). In my opinion, the flatwater isn't really any worse than running the Cartecay to the DNR takeout and the payoff in rapids is definitely a lot better.
The other thing worth mentioning of course, is the wilderness paddling experience. We didn't see any houses on Amicalola Creek and only two after the confluence with the Etowah. This run goes through a wilderness and the forested slopes and rocky cliff faces exemplify natural beauty. The risk of running class III-IV whitewater in a wilderness with no road access is easily outweighed by the beauty and solitude of total immersion in a wilderness gorge. I will definitely be back.
I have to say a special thanks to Roger and Chuck for showing us lines down the more difficult rapids. Even though we weren't really on your trip you were still kind enough to give us some advice, because in our group, only Steve had run the river once and that was several years ago. Good river karma to you!
