Toxic Doubleheader
Two of my high school buddies, Mike Stratton and Rob Tompkins as well as our 17 year old friend Van Null were heading towards Asheville, NC in the pouring rain. We were hoping to paddle the Toxaway, but were thinking that was a long shot since we’d all wanted to run it for years but had missed it every other attempt. That was when Chris Graghtmans called us to see if we’d be interested in running the Toxaway and it’s little brother, the Horsepasture run, in a day. Apparently, the two runs had never been done in one day, which was funny because we were going to attempt it on the second shortest day of the year.
To add to the challenges, I hadn’t actually been kayaking very much recently. My last semester of college had almost been the death of me and, in the last six months, I’d only paddled four times. Running both rivers in a day seemed daunting, but like a great way to get back on the wagon and celebrate graduation and Christmas.
At 6am the four of us met Chris at the Toxaway put in and ran shuttle as we waited for dawn. Before the sun had even come up, we were walking below the huge Toxaway falls, chatting about why we’re afraid of heights…not because we’re scared of falling, but…have you ever looked over a cliff and had the overwhelming urge to just jump? With that in mind I think we were all glad that the water was a medium level, not even closer to high enough to tempt the overwhelming falls, but perfect for the run below. As always, respect to Pat Keller for running the only descent of the big one.
Chris running the Toxaway. For more photos, click here...
As we put in, I was amazed by the character of the creek. Slide, pool, huge slide, pool, even bigger slide, pool. The run starts off with a bang, seal sliding into a low angle but pretty fast slide…and the entry slide is just a small taste of the rapids downstream.
The sun wasn’t even poking over the trees and ridges when we reached Minigizer (which didn’t feel too mini after six months in the library). We all put in half way down the slide to avoid the face/elbow-crushing rock on the right side of the slide. I looked at running the whole thing for a while, but finally put my tail between my legs and convinced myself that I was still “warming up” and used the “too much school” excuse again.
Every rapid we reached, I had trouble believing that I was in North Carolina, not California, or…heaven. The whole creek is amazingly runnable, and the fun to fuck up ratio is maybe the best I’ve ever experienced. Whenever I run a new creek, I like to compare it to the Little White…is it more or less fun than the little white. Few creeks meet the Little White standard, and while it could have been the good-class-V-after-a-long-dry-spell, the Toxaway’s slides put almost any other one day run to shame.
By the time we reached Energizer, the sun had begun to poke through the trees and give us a taste of the beautiful, sunny, warm day it was about to be. The portages are almost as fun to stare at as the rapids on this run, because if it wasn’t for one rock in each of them, they would look sickeningly runnable. If just one boulder disappeared Energizer could maybe be one of the biggest rapid/slides ever run, but the boulder is there so we had to portage. The portage, however, took nothing away from Energizer itself. It’s big, fun, and super fast, and as I shot photos I did get to watch Van flip, but again he’s 17, so he bounced back just fine, and then Mike turned around in the top third of the slide and screamed through the fastest part upright and backwards which had to have been scary. When I finally went, I could tell that I was good to go about mid-way down, and I’m pretty sure I started giggling it was so fun.
In between Energizer and Land Bridge is a 15-footer, which I could tell was going to have great light so I hopped out to shoot what ended up being a mediocre photo, and then just downstream missed shooting what ended up being the highlight of the trip.
Just after the 15 footer is a 40 foot slide into a crazy reconnecting second 40 foot slide. It’s only been run by a handful of people, and Chris fired it off perfectly while I was drying off my hands in order to grab the camera. Suffice to say that it was a super sick very clean line. After seeing that I had to pull out the trusty “I’ve done nothing but study for six months and I’m out of practice” excuse while everyone waited for me to run back up the hill and grab my boat to portage.
Chris running the Toxaway. For more photos, click here...
The whole way down, I found myself thinking that the river was just designed for kayakers. It starts out kinda mellow, then gets bigger and bigger until you run Land Bridge and then climax at Wintergreen. These two last drops are super close to each other, big, and fun. Land Bridge is an amazing formation that also requires a portage around a pretty clean, HUGE slide/waterfall that lands in a sieve created by none other than the slab of rock called the land bridge. Even without the top portage, the slide is the biggest yet. Also the fastest, longest, and most fun…until Wintergreen.
Wintergreen is a perfect cherry on top of an amazing run. It’s pretty hard to scout and you can’t really see any of it from a boat, just the horizon line. The line is more or less down the middle, so we just opted to blue angel it, four of us running it for the first time. I’m not sure I’ve giggled as much on any other creek. It starts out with a 20 foot boof into a low angle slide, into an almost vertical slide, into a reconnect with the rock just before hitting the pool, and smiling real big.
After the short run out we reached the take out, hiked the 3.5 miles to the car, ate lunch and headed to the Horsepasture.
By the time we reached the Horsepasture, the drops that usually look pretty steep and pretty big seemed like class IV now that we were wearing Toxaway goggles. We didn’t scout anything or shoot any photos on the next run because we didn’t really stop. Rob seemed to remember a line around the one sieve rapid on the run, “just drive really hard left and boof.” We all drove hard and boofed and ended up just fine, but it was obvious that we were getting tired and a bit loose. The next thing we knew, all we could see was Rob’s head sticking out of the sieve. I started to jump out of my boat and run towards him, but he made eye contact with me, smiled and patted his helmet, giving me the “I’m OK” signal. He didn’t look very OK. Thankfully I was wrong and he just put his hands on either side of the rocks that he was wedged in between and did a huge push up. He then rolled his body under his boat, more or less walking on his hands out of the sieve. To say the least we were impressed, worried, and relieved.
An hour after putting in, we were tired, hungry, and really happy. Endorphins oozing out of my ears, I shouldered by boat for the steep four mile hike back to the parking lot where we had food, water and warm clothes. The hike usually isn’t too bad, but after the Toxaway, the hike out of the Toxaway, the hike into the Horsepasture, and running the Horsepasture, we were exhausted. Van actually mentioned (more than once) that it had been the most physically strenuous thing he had ever done.
Just after dark we reached the parking lot, tired, and happy and feeling very back on the wagon.
Somewhat accurately estimated stats:
3000 vertical feet descended
Eight Miles hiked with boats
2000 vertical feet ascended with boats
Way too much driving
Thanks for reading this far!
Trip
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