Sun, Aug 24 2014 - Middle Ocoee River Whitewater Rafting (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Allston, Lisa Maldonado Participants: Lisa Maldonado, Allston, Russ, Aaron, Connie, Mariah C, Ramzi, Jane Z, Jared S, sherri, Evan Mulvey, Shawn Z, Tim G, Ding, Rachel W, Liz

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Despite an odd start to our day, we had a great time on the Ocoee!  Things seemed to get off to a shaky start when one of the TLs was stuck in Miami and couldn’t make it back to Atlanta, and the other’s car decided not to start this morning, meaning neither of us was able to make it to the carpool in time!  Thanks to some teamwork, and the help and patience of our fellow attendees, we eventually all met up and finally got on the road.  A shout out to TL Lisa for calling our folks at the carpool from Miami to make them aware of what was going on, many thanks to Aaron Rae for taking a last minute detour to pick me, the other TL, up when my car died, and of course a special thanks to the patient few who waited for us at the Busbee Park & Ride while all of this was being sorted out!

The good news is that after the morning’s initial hiccups, it was smooth sailing the rest of the day.  Our schedule was padded enough that even our delayed departure allowed us plenty of time to reach the OcoeeAdventureCenter, where we met up with the rest of our group.  In all, there were 15 of us who ended up rafting the middle section of the river, with five in each boat.  

Not only is this a beautifully scenic stretch of river to travel down, it is also a near-constant series of Class III and IV rapids.  As soon as you finish going through one rapid, you turn around and here comes another one!  We went through rapids forwards, backwards, spinning and returned in one case to “surf” one big rapid after paddling it the first time. Interestingly, the river volume was the highest it has been all summer, so that made some of the rapids even more intense than usual, and had our guides improvising in some cases given the changing nature of the river.  All in all, it was a really fun ride!

Despite the earlier, ominous weather forecasts, we had only a tiny bit of light rain for a few minutes toward the end, and then never saw it again. It took us about two hours to get down the river, after which we rode back to the Outfitter, changed, got our photos and headed home.  A few of us stopped in nearby Copperhill, TN to have some delicious Mexican food at El Rio before the drive back to Atlanta.  

Thanks to everyone who came out and made this a fun day on the river!  To check out the pics from our trip, click on the link to the photo album above.