Little Eastoe, June 26, 2006

On Monday we got a ton of rain during the morning to mid. afternoon hours. With flooding going on around us Dad and I decided we should go after he gets off from work. At this point in the day most of the rivers had already spiked and where coming down but were still really high. When we got to Pickens some of the roads where closed off from Twelve Mile being flooded, so we took an alternate route which had a few other flooded rivers but they were not on the road. There is a possible first descent on Meece Mill road which is a broken dam/slide thing. When we got to Little Eastoe it was at the highest water level we had ever seen it, the water also smelled of poop. There was a bit of water going in the small usually dry far river right channel. We scouted and looked at the river for a while then set up the shuttle (Dad running the shuttle). We got down the steep trail to the river, just passed the guard rail and just keep going straight to the river. We put in and ran the first drop, Chelie, in the middle, also can be run left, caught an eddy and the moved on to drop number two. The second drop, Face Crusher, we ran middle but probably be funner left or middle left, caught another eddy then headed down the river again. There is a bit of class II boogie between here and Truck Stop. Truck stop is 4 stage narrow channel, fast moving drop. The first drop of Truck Stop is best run on right. The next S turn drop should be run right, to avoid pinning on rocks on left, with forward momentum and a right hand stroke to keep from getting pushed into the river right rock, pretty much just keep on going straight because the channel takes a right hand turn. The next drop of Truck Stop can be run any where. The next drop after that is an S turn at low level but today you could just run river right over a straight slide, if you run on far right have some left angle so you don't pin on the river right rock, but don't run to far in the middle because there is another rock to pin into. At this point I caught a small eddy on river right and made sure my dad was ok, he was but almost flipped under the overhang rock (drop #3). There is some class III- boogie between Truck Stop and Green Wave. Green Wave has a few curlers that keep you away from the river left undercut. With a few correctional strokes, to keep you from getting side ways, and a strong stroke to get you over the hole you should be fine. My dad ended up getting sideways the hole stuck him for a few seconds flipped him and ended up swimming because he thought threw the rest of the river it's shallow and you should just pull your skirt instead of trying a roll because the river is shallow and you may hit your head, but where he actually did flip he was in deep water. We ran Green Wave 3 more times each with clean lines before going home. At that point the water was going down fast and the hole at the bottom of Green Wave started to look less scary.

Chelie: III
Face Crusher:III
Truck Stop:IV
Green Wave:IV

Level: Medium-high
3-4 in. in the morning
The river was much higher in the morning-noon but was coming down pretty fast at the time we got there.