Ocoee Whitewater Rafting and Camping

Hot summer sun and rafting are the perfect mix, and when we discovered through a friend that a Groupon was available to raft the Ocoee river with Adventures Unlimited, we jumped on the opportunity.  It had been ages since I'd been to the Ocoee - probably since middle school - and it's only a three and a half hour drive from Nashville so this was an easy weekend trip.  We headed down with several of my coworkers and spouses and set up camp Friday night at the outpost.  Only two notables regarding camping - 1) Adventures Unlimited's campground is not the best maintained I've seen and the toilets were dysfunctional all weekend and 2) we tested out our new Eno double nest sleeping system in lieu of a tent and loved it.  The new mosquito nets allowed us to slumber comfortably under the shelter of a tarp we hung overhead.

Saturday we departed for the river with our guide Alec, a dreadlocked and rather serious fellow who was quick to point out errors in our paddling technique.  Aaron and I found this a bit funny, as the drama with which he imparted these messages presumed that we could be in real danger if we didn't follow his instructions.  After the Gauley, the Ocoee is a cake walk, and our guides at the Gauley had been a hell of a lot more fun.  Regardless, Alec managed to get us down river without any pins or flips so that was good I guess.  During the Olympic section of the Upper Ocoee we hit a massive hole and I was chucked out of the raft.  Below you can see the painful progression of this mishap.  A bystander on shore threw me a rope and I was quickly able to get to the side and to safety.  Sort of pissed I lost those gold sunglasses though...

Here's a video of our progression through one of the river's Class IV rapids as well as an additional video of our guide Alec showing off.