Eagle's Break Section of the Etowah River

Another great day on the water in my kayak!!  This time, I went down The Etowah River for the second time.  The Eagle's Break section follows just after the Dawson Forest Section of the Etowah River; Plus a Waterfall.  Like then, Brian came along and he brought one of his boys along, too.  He also brought along a co-worker from his Costa Rica team, Jose, who was in town for a work trip.  Roger, who now how a cool Vibe Sea Ghost (nice Father's Day present!), brought along his son, Kyle, before he heads off to college for his Freshman year.  This made out flotilla out to be six kayaks.

As the Kayaking & Canoeing Google Map shows, we departed at the Kelly Bridge launch and as the next few photos show, we had a great view the whole seven miles of this section.

Here's a nice shot of Roger and Kyle.

This part of the river is very remote and it has a number of difficult crossing due to large trees in the river.

Joe, Brian and his son even got to see a beaver on one of these river dams.  Speaking of wildlife, Kyle got to see a wild boar!!  I missed BOTH of these creatures.  I didn't miss the other "quirks" about this section of the river.  The worst was that we hit a section that smelled like a sewer.  It was pretty powerful and one should be aware of it if planning on paddling down this section.  This is likely due to the proximity to the Cherokee County sewer treatment facility up one of the streams that feed into the Etowah.

It also seemed like we were paddling towards a war zone, but it was only the Riverbend Gun Club.  We also past the Georgia Model Aviators property and got to see a very cool jet-powered R/C airplane buzzing over the river.  Back on the river, we had a lot of cool rock features along the way.

And speaking of rocks, we also found the cool old stacked stone pilling of a long gone bridge.

And, I had to grab this picture of some shelf fungi for Gretchen who loves that crap.  As Roger and I were contemplating how well we'd survive once the zombie apocalypse comes, it was a relevant question he asked about the edibility of this fungus.  Back at home, Gretchen told me DEFINITELY NOT!  She reminded me of the great rule of thumb about mushrooms (and fungus) – don't eat anything you aren't already 100% sure about to avoid sickness and possible death.

We finally made it to the primitive take-out at the Old Federal Road Bridge.  Thanks to some hard-working teamwork, we got all the boats up the steep slopes and all loaded back up on our vehicles and trailers.

Thank you, Brian & Jose, for helping me pull my X-Factor beast up that hill; I couldn't have done it without y'all.  This really was a fun, and quick, trip down The Etowah River and I highly recommend it for an easy outing with family and friends.