I got to run the French Broad Section 9 at a normal level two days
ago as opposed to the high water run I did last year. Jeff Burton
and his friend Carl were my companions on the river. It is still a
great run, but it seemed to take longer this year. That could be
because we ran two of the rapids twice. The waves from Barnard to
Stackhouse are still decent size at 2,400 cfs. I would say about
2,000 for a minimum for the entire section just because we were
barely scraping over some parts of the flat water section between
Stackhouse and Kayaker's Ledge. This was the first time I ran this
rapid as last year, I ran to the other side of the island. Needle
Rock is a large 150-foot tall island in the middle of the river. If
you want to run the ledge go right of the island, but be ready to get
out and scout immediately as the drop is only about twenty yards from
where the island splits the river. There is a good tongue of water
right of center that goes down smoothly. It is hard to see from
above, so scout and then set someone on safety and left them tell you
right or left so you can hit this line. Carl stuck the same line
perfectly on the second run of this one and me and Jeff attempted to
run down the center where the ledge drops into and second ledge
hoping that we could catch some air off of it. Jeff ran down the
middle and scraped a little on the second ledge. I went left of
center and landed in shallow hitting my knees and foot pretty hard,
so stick with the good line on this one.
Next up was Frank Bell's Rapid. At higher water, you can run the
first drop on the left, but it looked a little boney at normal
water. We went right and then turned back to the left for the drop,
took the second drop on the left and let the diagonal wave shoot us
to the middle for the third drop. We can also run the third drop on
the left if you want to hit the worst of the hole and go for a
meltdown/duckdive,/mystery move whatever underwater ride, but I found
that the boards are so buoyant that they pop back up even when I
tried to stay under (the right side line at Grumpy's on the Ocoee is
much better for this, though the hole is very sticky). The surfing
is great on the right side of the third line and if everyone else
hadn't washed downstream, I would have went for a surf on the left
side. I can imagine it is awesome, though sticky. Pretty much it's
flat water to the takeout, except for one three to four foot ledge on
the right side and middle of the river a few hundred yards above the
takeout. I didn't remember it, so it must have been washed out last
year when I ran it at 7,500. I think I still like seeing the big
waves at high water, but it's a decent run at normal flows.