Dawson Forest Section of the Etowah River; Plus a Waterfall
My big kayaking push has been, and still is, my S2S - The Chattahoochee River from Source to Sea epic push, but I wanted to give another nearby river a try. This section is my first on The Etowah River and I have to admit it was actually my single favorite kayaking outing to date. The river looked great right off the launch.
The motley crew I was out on the river with were as excited as I to give the Etowah River a try, too.
We had a beautifully sunny day out on the river.
Fortunately, the river was rather narrow and most of it was in the shade.
Very soon after departing, we came across a cool old abandoned bridge.
When I was preparing for this trip I was surprised to find out that it ran along the abandoned Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory which was in operation from 1956 to 1971. Its initial mission was to see if they could build a nuclear-powered aircraft. As you can imagine, that didn't turn out so well and was eventually abandoned. This article gives some more insight to this site which was also known as Air Force Plant 67. From the river, we could only see a few foundations that were supposed to house the railroad bridges that ran to this USAF site as well as this weird looking structure.
A bit further down the river we saw another abandoned bridge.
About a mile downstream from there was a tiny stream we were fortunate to find and leave the boats to walk inland a bit.
Why were we looking for it? Because I'm a big fan of Waterfalls and my Etowah River User's Guide said I'd find one down this stream, so I went wondering down it.
I'm so glad I did!
It was aptly named.
We spent about 20 minutes goofing off, but then got back on the river. About a half-mile down the river we hit the only real "rapids" of the trip. In honor of the old USAF site, it is called Radioactive Rapids. Here's a picture looking back at the two ledges we went down.
From there, pretty smooth sailing!
Towards the end we found the rock ledge the river guide told us to look out for.
The last obstacle of the day was slipping through the crack at Rock Island. I really enjoyed hearing Roger squeal a bit when he thought he was going to get dumped over.
As you can see in these last few photos, we really had a blast out here on this beautiful run . We finished up our nine mile trip in right at three hours of time.
I can't wait to get back out on The Etowah River.