Big Creek revisited
A nasty little drop called Bruces Sluice. Bruce hare spent the better part of a week driving us to one nasty fall after another in the area, and then out of the blue, one day gave us a lecture about undercuts and sievs. This thing was basically undercut after undercut, so we named it afte him...
There seems recently to be a great deal of discussion about Big Creek, a little known tributary that runs into Overflow Creek in Georgia. So I dug deep into my archives, and managed to find quite a surprising number of photo's from my descents with Russ Kullmar and Allan Singly. But here is a little history update from Ken Strickland first of all...

A group of us "ran" this stream in the winter if 1975. My notes are titled: "First and Possibly Only Descent of Big Creek." Today, this is funny! It has been run several times since then and our "First Descent" is certainly a question of semantics since we walked as much as we paddled! Mark Warren found this interesting squiggly line on a topo and one Winter's day found us putting in off the Hwy 28 bridge. Mark and Joe Stubbs were in a C-2! Contemplate THAT for a minute! As my notes say, "May the Lord look after the widows and little children of the world, and also those simple souls willing to paddle a C-2 down a stream such as this." Ray Stang was in a K-1, as was I, and Tom Moye was in a C-1.

Anyway, the first portage comes soon, perhaps within 1/4 mile of the put-in. A steep approach rapid roars over a vertical ledge of perhaps ten feet into a seething cauldron of foam before dropping another five feet or so into a pool. Is it runnable? By today's standards, yes, by a VERY few. However, the logs protruding out of the foam usually make it an easy decision as to what to do! There are several large ledges before one encounters what is now called "Thunder Dome." We never called it anything but "scary" from a paddler's perspective (and perhaps
"magnificent" in our private thoughts). It reminds me of Linville Falls, somewhat. Perhaps dropping a total of sixty feet in several stages, the final one on spilling on top of a boulder or ledge before making the
plunge into the pool. Can IT be run? Back off folks, we've got to save something for future generations of paddlers! The last half mile or so drops steeply down to the Three Forks. From my notes: " From the topo we know that this section, perhaps a half mile in length, drops incredibly steeply in its haste to join the West Fork. Quite unrunnable. We feel that portaging along the riverside will be difficult if not downright
impossible. We elect to leave the river and find the trail on the ridge above the river." and, "During our portage along the ridge we look down through the trees and view many cascading drops. The water seems to fall in slow motion, an indication of just how large these drops are." I now know that all of this section has been run, but of course we were in ICF
regulation length glass boats, cop-out of the Ancients. (I was in a home-made Lettmann Mark V - oops, has the statute of limitations expired?).

We relaunched on Overflow Creek, just above the confluence aptly named "Three Forks". It is quite possible that we were the first ones in boats on this section of the West Fork, but, no matter - we portaged most of it!

And now, if my history is correct (are you out there Robin Socemdog), we told Allan Singley about this run which got him to thinking and looking at other squiggly lines in the area. Soon, perhaps later that year or early during the next, he soloed Overflow Creek (okay, maybe his dog went with him). The next run was a dual one by Allan and Robin Socemdog soon followed by a third descent, a threesome of Robin Socemdog, Joe Stubbs, and myself. I still remember, with fondness, Robin Socemdog's incredibly animated descriptions of how to run the big drops. He'd spout, "Just paddle up, pppttttuppp!!! off the lip into a pool!" We always turned our heads as he usually sprayed us with spittle when describing how to run them! Robin Sockemdog, the king of the riverine onomatopoeia!

Oops, sorry Craig. You asked for specific information, not a history lesson. But it's the best that I could do. I haven't been back!

Quite an epic tale... and one that inspired us to go check it out ourselves. Some of the info is inacurate about rapid names, but its one heck of a place.

What he reffers to as Thunderdome is in fact Holy Shit, and Thunderdome is further down in the section he missed -where the majority of the nasty stuff is.

It's amazing how many picutres I was able to find of this river, so enjoy them...


Corran
Not sure what these are... jsut some of the generic rapids on the run. Most of the run is pin spots and crags and stuff, so they were all pretty gnarly.
I think this is the drop after Bruce's Sluice (background) and was called Bulkheads Rule - guess why....

It was on runs like this that I started to rethink the length of boats. here I'm in a Mountain Bat 11footer. Russ was in an Aqua Bat -about 10 feet, and it was much better at making the turns - just too low volume. I started to work on a boat (actually had a stern hatch on it!! and bulkhead) but it never went to production... 10 feet, wide, flatish bottom, rounded sides... Oh well...
This is Allan Singly... a guy that paddles in mid winter in flip flops, a wool sweater, cut off jeans, a C1 and NO ROLL!!!! But we never had to rescue him either... he's swim his stuff to shore faster than we could get to him, and be empty and ready to go in a minute... amazing...
Another of the generic, tight, undercut drops.
Thunderdome...

The entrance is a fall that lands on a set of nasty logs (or was back in 88 or 89...) It then channels into pot holled, velcro like rocks, undercuts, and more nasty logs, churning and twisting over and over like this, and then ends in a 20 foot drop at the end. You can see the gradient in the backdrop. On the right photo I would be standing at about the very very top of where you can see the water starting to plunge in (where I am in the left photo pointing at the logs) which is already about 20 vertical feet into the drop. we ran the last falls several times (Russ, Paul Broussard, Snuffy and myself.
This is "Rock Bottom" -the first major rapid on the run. Three main drops, and each one with a nasty piton rock at the base. Don;t miss your boof!!!! Boof right,turn, boof left, turn move right, turn and boof left. In fast water, and no margin for error. it amazes me still today that we were able to make those moves in those long 11 foot kayaks!!!


You can see just to me left on the last photo the piton rock... and getting right wasn't easy!!!

Even more amazing is the existance of these photo's... since this is before camer's and video camera's were a part of boating. Why we had this camera I don't know, but I'm glad now that we did.
This is Bruces Sluice below... the water splits around the entrance rock making a clean entry impossible. On both sides, undercuts (one that Russ nearly went under - pogo stick bounding on its upstream face, until he got around it. Then into the fast channel that all feeds into the undercuts on the bottom right and left, and of course, the pin rock. The pin rocks may not be as big an issue with 8foot kayaks - I dunno, but it was an issue then!
Kullmars Courage.


All the water was pushing left into that big rock at the bottom. The top was protected by trees, making a left to right angle of entry really hard, and even then, the drop wanted to push you left into the piton rock. nasty. Russ went first and aced it! I don;t remember is Allan ran it - -probably did that mad guy!!!

Anyway, thre is my posterity posting to start off Imagine News for 2005... a blast from winter 1988-1989 (thats a LONG time ago for most of todays paddlers!!)

I dunno if you noticed my gear. You couldn't buy a US made kayak with a keyhole cockpit in N America, or a life Jacket with a harness, or a helmet with face protection... so the jacket and helmet were home made (in fluo and glitter for the times - hey, it was the 1980's...), and that beast of a 50 lbs kayak... good boat at the time!!!