DRY COON

Quality First Descents are few and far between in the Southeast. Mostly I find myself rediscovering many of the Gorges and Creeks that were originally discovered by the pioneers of our sport. Scanning the Topographical Maps and Google Earth, you can find many un-run creeks. But most of the time there is a reason they haven’t been run; maybe it’s a tiny watershed, maybe it’s too “fringe” to run, or maybe it’s just a plain old’ pile of sh*t. So to catch wind of a run like we found is a rare find.

Recently we have been concentrating our focus on Sand Mtn. This is an area known more for snake handling than white water. The Creeks here are dangerous, hard, and they all involve a lake paddle. There are also no real “Big Drops” that make you think “wow” or “amazing.” It’s mostly just dirty creeking, hard boulder gardens filled with many hidden dangers that would impress very few from pictures or video. Thus this area has always seemed to be a little less cool, than the other surrounding areas. This lack of coolness has always suited me just fine, because most of the time the only paddlers are us. So to hear that there was a major un-run creek on this mountain wasn’t that far fetched.

Finding this run was always a focus of ours, but it never really happened. Whether it was the habit of going to our favorite run, just the unknown, or the possibility of wasting the day on an epic portage fest; we passed on this run a few times.

The Put In

Monday March 28, 2011, Chris McCoy and I met up for our usual Sand Mtn. fun. He had the day off and I had to be back at work for a night shift. So we decided to make an earlier start. On my drive to meet Chris I noticed all the creeks FULL of water. So I started to decide how high was too high for me. Luckily Chris was doing the same thing. Finding the creek on the “high side of scary” we gladly tuck tail and decided to look elsewhere to get our fix. Options were limited we could drive over to Lookout or down to Little River Canyon. Neither of these really sparked much appeal to us. It was always my belief that Dry Coon Creek ran when everything was high. So I mentioned this to Chris and he was immediately game.

We spent the next hour or so scrambling to remember the directions to the put in, take out and looking at a map. A couple of locals followed us to the take out, they were curious of this mystery creek they had never heard of and wanted to warn us of the pack of wild dogs and the full grown mountain lion his buddy saw back there in the fall. We took this as a kind gesture and appreciated the encouragement, it’s always better to have curious, supportive locals than angry ones. We suited up and drove to the put in. It was amazing a possible first descent, it involved no hiking that we knew of and a short lake paddle.

At the put in we deemed the level to be a bit low, but hey we were there. So we proceeded. The level was a low medium and about an inch more water would have been perfect. The run started out very mellow. We ran two small rapids and saw an ominous horizon line. This must be “The Big One” that was rumored to be in here. It was. This rapid was a 3 part drop, that dropped between 50 to 60ft. It’s a beautiful boof into a pushy slide into about a 12ft ledge. After a long scout I set safety below the falls and Chris fired it up. After a quick celebration I ran up and proceeded to run it also. Let me say this may be one of the most fun rapids I have ever run. We dubbed it “The Creecher”.

Matt Wallace on the Entrance Drop on "The Creecher"

The Final drop of "The Creecher"

Chris McCoy on one of the early boofs

A typcle rapid we called it Slave Cave

The Rest of this section consisted of fun easy IV+ slides and a ledge or two. Then soon the gradient teetered out and we thought it was over. We had know a tributary came in halfway down the run, but thought we must have missed it because we were having so much fun. Anyway about that time we saw the tributary and realized the fun had only begun. The river then changed character to full on boulder garden. The rapids were steep, manky, and dirty, but the lines were obvious and clean. Each rapid had a great swooping boof or rock grind. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. But as time passed these rapids didn’t let up. We began to wonder when is this going to end, how long was this run, and I had to get to work so we didn’t really have all day. Everything in the section went except for two mandatory portages, where the entire river disappeared in to a sieve. Due to the steep un relenting nature of this section of river we dubbed it “the Alabama 9” after a similar section of river we ran last summer. This section ended with a great sliding rapid that almost mirrored “Slide for Life” on Cheeseman Canyon in Colorado.  We dubbed this rapid "Hinds' Sight" in memory of  Brad Hinds (an Alabama Paddling Legend).  After the short paddle out and lake paddle we were riding high on life, excited to find such a quality run.

Chris McCoy on some Boogie Pictures don't do it justice

More Boogie

This was a fun rapid real twisty and turny  Notice the drops above in the background

Alot steeper than it looks.

Another Rapid that pictures don't do justice. At the bottom of this one I eddied out to wait for Chris and accidently put my hand on a beaver needless to say it scared both me and the beaver.

Chris McCoy typicl grind boof

This is the biggest seive I  have seen. It is after a real narrow slot canyon. Don't miss the eddy because all the water goes through there.

A typical Double boof on the bottom.

Matt Wallace Grinding another rapid

This was the nature of the bottom half slotty grinding boofs.  So Much fun.

Big thanks to all the guys who came before us and inspire us to keep searching.  Thanks to the “Bama Crew” that cleaned this thing out many years ago, wondering if it was even run able.  Thanks to the core group of guys I paddle with, there may have been only two of us there but without yall I wouldn’t be where I am as a paddler.

Chris McCoy Doing what he does best.

A more thorough run description will follow with access directions, rapid names, etc. after Chris and I have time to sit and compare notes.  If you want any information feel free to contact me.

MW