Canoeing North Carolina's Toe River
Olivia and I wanted to expand our mountain climbing experience, so the day after summiting four peaks in the Black Mountains near Burnsville, North Carolina, we hitched up with Rivers Edge Outfitters and spent the afternoon canoeing down the North Toe River. |
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Handling a canoe is easy if you don't mind tipping over. But navigating a river properly, choosing the correct route through rapids and keeping your bow pointed downstream are not as simple as you might think. So we were glad to have Terry, our Rivers Edge guide, go along with us in his own kayak to keep us out of trouble and make sure we didn't dump ourselves and all of our belongings overboard.
The trip started just a few miles outside of Spruce Pine, where Olivia and I spent the better part of an hour paddling around in a quiet section of the North Toe River so we could get accustomed to how to handle our canoe. Once Terry was convinced that we wouldn't drown ourselves in the first rapid, he led us downstream and into a really scenic area of the river well away from any civilization.
Sure enough, on the second set of rapids, we managed to get our canoe sideways and hung up on a big rock that jutted up out of the river. By some miracle we didn't tip over, and Terry paddled back to us to coach us out of our predicament. And when I refer to "rapids," you should be aware that everything here was Class 1 or Class 2... in other words, the simple stuff that experienced whitewater folks scoff at. But even this challenged our meager maritime skills.
After another near disaster in which we got sideways through the rapids again, we started to figure out how to point our canoe in the right direction and the rapids became a little more enjoyable and a lot less spooky. After our first mile, Olivia and I looked forward to the rushing areas of the river and managed to keep ourselves afloat and headed downstream, just like old hands.
Terry told us that there would be two portages - that is, rapids that were beyond our experience level and would require dragging the boat ashore, past the obstacles, and putting it back into the river on the other side of the danger area. We actually made it through one potential hazard and only had to portage one time, when the rapids were clearly beyond our novice skill level.
For the last two miles of the trip the rain began pouring down on us and despite our rain gear, we got pretty well soaked. But by this time we had given up on staying dry anyway so we just enjoyed the river and didn't worry about it. When we finally reached our ending point we pulled our canoes up on the river bank and saw a huge suspension bridge overhead. Since our shuttle service would take another fifteen minutes to pick us up, Olivia and I decided to walk the bridge and take some fun pictures.
We both definitely enjoyed the experience and want to go canoeing again. However, the best way to go is to do it in warmer weather and in swimwear, and just count on getting wet. Our first river adventure was great fun and a good preparatory step toward being able to tackle bigger rapids in either a canoe or a kayak next time.
The trip started just a few miles outside of Spruce Pine, where Olivia and I spent the better part of an hour paddling around in a quiet section of the North Toe River so we could get accustomed to how to handle our canoe. Once Terry was convinced that we wouldn't drown ourselves in the first rapid, he led us downstream and into a really scenic area of the river well away from any civilization.
Sure enough, on the second set of rapids, we managed to get our canoe sideways and hung up on a big rock that jutted up out of the river. By some miracle we didn't tip over, and Terry paddled back to us to coach us out of our predicament. And when I refer to "rapids," you should be aware that everything here was Class 1 or Class 2... in other words, the simple stuff that experienced whitewater folks scoff at. But even this challenged our meager maritime skills.
After another near disaster in which we got sideways through the rapids again, we started to figure out how to point our canoe in the right direction and the rapids became a little more enjoyable and a lot less spooky. After our first mile, Olivia and I looked forward to the rushing areas of the river and managed to keep ourselves afloat and headed downstream, just like old hands.
Terry told us that there would be two portages - that is, rapids that were beyond our experience level and would require dragging the boat ashore, past the obstacles, and putting it back into the river on the other side of the danger area. We actually made it through one potential hazard and only had to portage one time, when the rapids were clearly beyond our novice skill level.
For the last two miles of the trip the rain began pouring down on us and despite our rain gear, we got pretty well soaked. But by this time we had given up on staying dry anyway so we just enjoyed the river and didn't worry about it. When we finally reached our ending point we pulled our canoes up on the river bank and saw a huge suspension bridge overhead. Since our shuttle service would take another fifteen minutes to pick us up, Olivia and I decided to walk the bridge and take some fun pictures.
We both definitely enjoyed the experience and want to go canoeing again. However, the best way to go is to do it in warmer weather and in swimwear, and just count on getting wet. Our first river adventure was great fun and a good preparatory step toward being able to tackle bigger rapids in either a canoe or a kayak next time.