Greeter Falls

After all the tornadoes blew through the south east around Chattanooga, I knew something was going to be running.  I was about to go to bed, wondering when Nick was going to message me and tell me where we were kayaking.  He messaged me at 12 that night and told me to meet him at Greenlife at 7:30 and that we were going to Greeter Falls.  I show up at 7:30 and nobody is there yet...of course.  A person drives up next to me and smiles and waves as if he knew me.  He told me that he was a photographer for nooga.com, a new website in Chattanooga for local news and other stories.
After the massive storms that had rolled through the day before, Greenlife had no power and was closed.  So much for my 24 oz. maté that usually gets me through the day.  We drove to Greeter where me and Nick geared up.  I had only seen this waterfall one time in a video and wondered if I would even run it.
We walked to the waterfall, took one good look at it, and decided it was good to go.  Nick ran it first and had a good line.  I ran it second and had a good line too.  Nick then decided he wanted to run it again and did, styling the line.  Nick lost his paddle and went around the bend to go get it.  Right about that time, a park ranger showed up and was pissed to say the least.  He said he could arrest us for this and that he had pulled bodies out of the waterfall himself.  He told us we had to leave right then.  I ran downstream and helped Nick rope his boat out.  We walked up the trail with the park ranger to the parking lot.  The ranger took our license numbers on both of our licenses and told us to leave.  The park ranger was nice to us but in the future I don't think he will be.  Be careful if you decide to go there and run it.  A stealth mission is your best option.
Overall I had tons of fun at Greeter Falls.  It was the highest waterfall I have run so far but I'm sure there are many more to come in the future.  The one question I still have, does Chattanooga have the highest concentration of runnable waterfalls in the south east?

Click here to see the article on nooga.com

Here are some pictures James Guenther took from nooga.com:

Hiking In

About To Run It

All In a Day's Work When You Live In Chattanooga!

First Decent of "The Rasta Slide"

After it poured down rain and severe thunder storm warnings plagued the news, I got a text message from Nick Murphy saying that in the morning we were going to go run Bear Creek and possibly check out a hidden first decent 10 minutes away from the takeout to the Bear.  Nick said it was like "Stairway" on the Bear only longer and taller.
I met Nathan Mcdade and Nick at the takeout of Bear Creek.  We drove Nicks car to the drop.  We got there and hiked down to the bottom.  After really seeing the size of this thing, I never knew drops like that existed any further south than Asheville.
We tried cutting out the log at the bottom of the drop but quickly realized that the saw was to small to cut it out so we tried to z-drag it out.  The log was to big to move without a chainsaw so we decided we were going to run it anyways, the log not making to much of a difference in the line.  Nick Murphy got into his kayak and ran the drop first and had a good line.

I slid down the drop, having a good line and a hell of an adrenaline rush.  

Nathan ran the drop with style.

After claiming the first decent we hiked out to the car.  We loaded boats and went to the put-in of Bear Creek, already having shuttle set.  It was a memorable day in my kayaking career, never having realized how classic Chattanooga kayaking really is.  We're definitely going back with more water and a chainsaw.  

Scouting Mission

where I could go no further

After finishing up a paper for school I decided it would be a good time to hike down a creek that drops off of Lookout Mountain near the secret sport climbing spot known as B-Rocks.  It is funny how many creeks flow off of Lookout that have been left relatively undiscovered.  I guess this is for the better because otherwise beer cans would litter these beautiful rivers.  It turns out the river is pretty much unrunnable but it was a very beautiful place to have visited.
Here are some pictures I took on the way:

Lead-in to first main drop

Main drop on the river

So many waterfalls around
left undiscovered

Spring is almost here

the river right before it drops off
into the picture below

After flowing off of the 30 footer onto
rocks, the river turns into this