Paddling & Running

The Food Guy and I rolled back into Athens this afternoon after another fun little adventure. We packed up the mobile dog house early (and I mean early) saturday morning to make the trip up to Reeve's house in Scarietta. Food Guy woke me up at 6:30 in the morning and told me it was time to eat breakfast. Really, it seemed more like a midnight snack to me since I don't EVER get up at that hour. I looked at the Food Guy as if to say, "Seriously, 6:30 am? Is this why you spent the last three years in school? So we could get up at 6:30?" He explained to me that we had to get up this early because he and Reeve had a plan to go paddle and run up in the Cohuttas. I said, "Well, you'd better let me stay with Java and Bella at Reeve's house 'cause I'm not swimming down some stupid flooded river with you while you kayak." The Food Guy decided that was a reasonable request, so he let me chill with Java, Bella, Rin, and little Pearse while he and Reeve went off on their silly adventure. He told me all about it when he picked me up last night so we could go hang out in Mid-town with Lisa. It sounds like a pretty good day, so I'll give y'all the highlights.

First they drove up to Cisco, grabbed a chicken biscuit, and then into the Cohutta Wilderness. When they got to the river, they dropped their running shoes, some water, food, and some Red Bull off at the take out and then drove up to Chicken Coop Gap to hike down to the river with their boats.

The hike down sounded a little crazy to me. He said it was about 150 feet straight down the mountain to the river. They had to rope their boats down in front of them for most of the hike-in. Once they got there, they drank some Red Bull to re-charge the batteries.

The river was much higher than they thought it would be. It rained a lot the night before, but it is springtime and the trees tend to suck up a lot of water. The trees left enough water for the river to be really high.

He said that they had a lot of fun paddling, and it was a good day of knocking the rust off before his big trip out west this summer. Food Guy said the rapids were a lot of fun, and it was a part of the Cohuttas he'd never seen before.

They spent about 3 and a half hours paddling down the river before they got to the take out. Then, they changed into their running stuff, ate a power bar, drank some water, and started running back up the mountain to Reeve's truck. The run was about 8 miles, and I'm sorry I missed that part. I love running in the woods.

All in all, though, it sounds like it was a pretty good day to stay at the house. I like being in the woods, but y'all know I'm not a huge fan of swimming. And, there's no way I could have made it across that river. We'll be hanging out in Athens most of the week, and I'm sure we'll get a few good runs in here in town. Food Guy has some papers to grade, but I think we'll manage to get another little adventure in before the week is over, so stay tuned.