Two Brothers Knocking Out Two Sections of the Etowah River

It finally happened!! – Eric and I got out on the river together after he flew out when he had a few days break in his flying schedule.  We decided we would knock out the Indian Mounds and Euharlee sections of The Etowah River for a great long trek that stretched 18 miles long.

We started just downriver of Allatoona Dam and we could not drive up the base of it on the road due to security barriers.  We talked about paddling upriver the extra mile (each way!), but sitting at mile 0 of the 18 mile trip we (ok... I) decided to skip it and this is all we could see looking back towards the dam.

We started off with very high spirits and I quickly felt like we were temping fate and nature threw us a BUNCH of vultures in the first mile or two.  It was really creepy with 20+ of the big birds watching us.

We got our mind off these scavengers after we went through the best built pre Civil War bridge pilings I've yet seen on all of my paddling journeys.

I also snapped off a couple of photos of a cool red barn.

Three miles into the journey is a BIG HAZARD and I don't think all of the river guides, articles and blog posts I read when preparing for this journey call it out clearly enough.  Let me say this... WHEN YOU SEE THE RUSTY BUILDING ON RIVER RIGHT... YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THE WATER ON RIVER LEFT – ASAP!!

I'm betting you can see the drop off pretty clearly in the picture above from the portage spot, but Thompson Weinman "low head" Dam can really get you into trouble if you roll over it.  The best warning and plan for dealing with it that I have found are detailed here.  In a nutshell, stay river left after the Hwy 293 bridge and watch for the small white utility shed once you can see the rusty buildings above on river right.  Just past the white utility shed you see the portage path which is where I took the picture above.  You are getting pretty close to the hazard, but the current should make it easy for multiple boats to portage.

The portage itself was a bit more complicated than I was imagining, so take your time and then catch your breath at the bottom of the dam before pushing off for the rest of the trip.

We eventually strolled past the Etowah Indian Mounds (which Gretchen and I visited back in our Two More Covered Bridges trip) and saw a flock of geese.

We saw a bunch of turtles, too!!

We braved the forecast which called for showers all day and we enjoyed the cloudy skies and the cooler weather than came along with it.  Unfortunately, that hindered my camera skills as shown in the old bridge photo below.

But then we had an unexpected 30 minutes of blue skies peeking through white puffy clouds.

We took advantage of this and stopped for lunch at Floyd's Landing which was officially closed for the season.  We also agreed to switch boats for the remaining seven miles.  No sooner was I celebrating the sunny skies that we got hammered for about 15 minutes of heavy rains.  I tried to be a photographer of wildlife and man-made structures during this time (I'll let you be the judge to the outcome of this effort).

Once the rains ended, we neared the end of our journey.  We did great on timing and tempo.  Despite the lengthy time it took to portage the dam and the lunch break, we finished up this 18 mile journey in six hours.  I could not have asked for a better trip to introduce my brother to kayaking.  I even think I've got him hooked!