Ocoee River Dam Whitewater Release

 

 

Blairsville, GA (high 78, low 59)

 

I had forgotten how nice the weather is in September here in Blairsville.  I wish September would last longer.  :)   October will bring much colder temps and with it our desire to head south.

I am trying to get caught up on my blogs now that my laptop is running well again.

The Saturday before last, we decided to head to Tennessee to see the last dam release of the season from the Ocoee II Whitewater Center.  It’s about scenic 50 mile drive, and we made a day of it. There are three different white water release areas  (Ocoee I, II and III). We had never seen it from Ocoee II,and since that was the location of the whitewater events in the 1996 Summer Olympics, we wanted to see it with water flowing.   And flow it did!

We had previously seen this portion of the river “dry.”

There are two bridges crossing the river.  This is the main one.

You can see how rocky it is.  It’s naturally made gorge and no rocks had to be excavated.  They did add some rocks for some of the courses for the Olympics.

The dam release didn’t happen until 10:30am, so we got there early enough to take photos of the before, during and after the water release.

Here is a before picture,  looking upriver.

 

Looking down river.

 

If you look at the top middle of this next picture you can see the water starting to come down.  It started out with a little rise and in minutes the flow began in earnest.

Still looking upriver.  It’s coming.

and coming

 

A lot of trees are now underwater.

The beginning of the flow looking downriver.

Still coming.

 

The water no sooner covered the rocks than the whitewater rafts started coming, and coming, and coming.

 

 

Then, for some reason, they had to all stop by the bridge and wait.  Maybe they needed to make sure there was enough water downstream?

Finally, they started to go.  One at a time.

There are several different whitewater centers. Each had different color boats.  The blue team started first.

There were no spills, initially.

 

 

Notice the waterfall behind the raft in the following picture?

I think the next picture shows the same spot before the water came.

 

There was an area downriver a little that apparently was the spot where they expected people to tumble out of their boats.

There were 3 guys standing onshore, with helmets, wearing life preservers and with rescue ropes in hand.

This area drew the biggest crowds of watchers, so we knew there would be a lot of spills.

Most got dumped from this raft.

 

There were people under that whitewater.  We held our breath waiting for them to pop back up.

The guys on shore sprung into action to rescue them.  Despite the rafters wearing life preservers and helmets, they could easily die.  Last year two women died one week-end in separate accidents.  A friend of ours who was a tri-athlete and is a strong swimmer, got thrown out of one of these rafts and very nearly drowned a few months ago.  We’re glad you’re still with us Stephanie! 

The rescuer almost went into the water himself.  The lady there grabbed his foot, as he was trying to grab a guy struggling in the water.

You can see the top of a helmet in the water. The poor guy nearly drowned I think.  I think there was another guy underwater towards the left of the photo.

It took him a few minutes to catch his breath.

There were some serious rapids.

 

Note to self.  If you decide to go white water river rafting, DO NOT go with the company in the RED boats.  They seemed to like to spill their folks.

 

Other boats had trouble, but not as many ended up in the water as the red boats.

I watched one boat leader have the group stop paddling right in a dip that I would have been paddling like crazy.  They ended up caught in the swirling water and capsized, throwing everyone but the “captain” out and into the water.

This next picture shows something that nearly gave me heart failure.  Why in the hell was this young mother letting her baby get so close to the water?

We assumed this “rescuer” was maybe her husband?

 

She let that baby crawl all over on those sharp rocks and she did  not always have her eye on that baby.  I would have had that baby on a leash.

At one point the baby crawled right down to the side walk where bicycles were flying by all the time.  Yikes.  What is wrong with people?

 

After watching for awhile, we took a drive down to Ocoee III, which wasn’t nearly as exciting and everybody stayed in their boats.   :)

Nice rock walls along the highway.

Tandem kayakers getting ready to hit the rapids.

There is another drop off point at Ocoee III. 

The water becomes like a lake, flat calm and with no apparent current.

On the other side of the bridge in the photo above, there is a spillway.  It doesn’t look as high or steep in the picture as it really is.  No rafts or kayakers go off the spillway.

 

There is a path that you walk down to the water to launch your rafts or kayaks just past the spillway.

Or you can walk down even further to launch in an area with less rapids.

There is a nice little kayak launch here, but somebody decided to stand right in front of the photographer, so you can’t see it very well.   :)

It’s a beautiful area and a wonderful place to spend the day…even if you choose not to go whitewater rafting.

There are mountain biking trails, hiking trails and of course white water rafting and kayaking.

 

 

 

It was a lovely day with a high temperature of 70 degrees or less.  Sure beats Florida in the summer!  The ride home was beautiful with gorgeous scenery all the way home.

 

Ruby Falls, Chattanooga, Tennessee

 

Blairsville, Ga  (high 70, low 40)

 

We’ve had frost two mornings this past week, but it looks like it’s going to warm up a little the next week.  The weather has been perfect.  Blue skies, and cool crisp air.  This is the perfect time of year here in the mountains.  Even though we’ve been here since early July, we are NOT anxious to leave next week.

We’ve been busy trying to find the fall foliage.   There are some areas that have been pretty, but for the most part the color is not spectacular this year.  We saw some nice color almost 2 weeks ago at Brasstown Bald (the tallest peak in GA) and the Cherohala Skyway, but it’s very spotty.

A few days ago we took a drive to Chattanooga to see Rock City, Ruby Falls, and the birthplace of a very special boy.

We drove to Chattanooga via hwy 64, hoping for some fall color.  Unfortunately, it looked like it had already peaked.

It was a pretty drive though. 

It was a three state day.

Highway 64 in Tennessee, runs alongside the Ocoee River, which is the home of the 1996 summer Olympic kayaking events. 

We had intended on going back there this week-end for the water release, but due to lack of fall color, we scrapped that plan.

At one point, there were some huge rocks that had fallen down into embankment.   I thought of this later in the day when we were 1100 feet underneath these type of rocks.

 

 

We arrived in Chattanooga and followed the signs to Lookout Mountain and Ruby Falls.

The caves at Ruby Falls had been used by native Americans and both Union and Confederate soldiers who set up hospitals inside.  There was a cave opening in the side of the mountain, but in  1905, the original cave entrance was sealed off when the Southern Railway completed a tunnel through the base of the mountain.

In 1923, cave enthusiast, Leo Lambert decided to attempt to reopen the cave by drilling an elevator shaft straight down 420 feet through solid rock, and into the base of the mountain.

In 1928, while drilling the shaft, workers felt a gush of air at 260 feet.  Leo Lambert and a small crew crawled down into an 18 inch shaft and explored the cave.  He was gone for 17 hours.  When he came back, he had wonderful stories of the wonders of the cave, including the amazing underground waterfall.

On his next trip into the cave, he took his wife Ruby who crawled on her belly in a 18 inch opening, in a dress!   Leo named the waterfall after his wife.

In 1975, the secondary exit from the falls to the base of the mountain was cut.  On our way out, going up the elevator, it occurred to me that there may only be one way in and one way out.  What would happen if there was a power outage, or the elevator quit.   I was glad when our guide told us there was a back up exit.     Maybe I should have thought of that going in.

That elevator shaft took us straight down into the solid rock mountain, but now you can only go down 260 feet because OSHA stopped allowing visitors to the lower caves that are some 400 feet down.  

Our cave tour was guided, and as usual, they went way too fast for me.  We took our spot at the end of the group, so that we could snap pictures and not hold up everyone else.

We were constantly getting left behind but fortunately there were signs telling you where to go. 

There were well placed lights and with the right camera settings, you could get pictures without using your flash.   I wasn’t happy with my pictures.  Some of it was operator error, and some of it was lack of time to even focus.  I hate rushed cave tours.

Some areas were wide and high.

 

There were beautiful formations.

Some resembling animals.

 

This was a reflecting pool.  If the guide would have just slowed down a little, I could have gotten a much better photo.

 

The 145 foot waterfall is at the end of a large chamber. 

At this point, we were 1106 feet below the surface!

There are automatic lights that go on for a few minutes, changing colors the entire time.   I would have liked to have seen it with natural lighting like in the next picture that I borrowed.

 

 

The guide mentioned something about going behind the falls, but when we got there, that area was roped off.

 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed Ruby Falls, but would have enjoyed a more leisurely tour more.  There were so many people touring the cave, so I know they have to get you in and out quickly. 

Afterwards, we drove up the road to Rock City, and then to a special place we had last visited many years ago.

I’ll post about those later as this blog is already too long.