Middle Paint Creek II-III+

MUWC First Club Trip

March 2005

By luck we found an almost 60 degree Good Friday and water in Paint Creek (level +3 inches over bridge @ Mossy).  With a few competent boaters and a lot of beginners on board we headed for Paint.  Middle Paint has a good gradient with nice ledges and lots of eddies and places to work on river running skills.  There were a couple of early swims but then the group got into a rhythm and we started bombing along.  It was a short run in terms of distance but we might of caught every eddy on the creek.  Jim Denvir the faculty advisor figured out that eddies give you a chance to take a break.  Occasionally I would look behind me and Jim would be chilling in some micro eddy.  The most memorable section is a bunch of nice ledge drops with tight fast channels in between.  There were tons of smiles.  There were lots of rolls but the occasional swim allowed the group to work on some rescue skills as well.  I stayed in front looking for Dreaded Drop III+ because taking a group of beginners blind into that drop would have not been pretty.  The group got out above and scouted.  To let them see the line I went first and took the right line after the opening holes and set up safety at the bottom.  Mark McCalla lead them into the drop.  Mark let his guard down and got surfed a bit in the bottom hole. Marks surf caused the group to hit the perfect skirt lines around the hole and then Mark styled his way out.  Everyone felt really good about styling the drop.  Mark said later that he was surfing on purpose.  In the last half mile there is a shallow crappy rapid that starts out ok and then gets like 2 inches deep (exaggeration but relative).  Darrin O'Dell got hung up on a rock and had to let go of his paddle and it is still MIA.  It still confuses me how we lost it.  At the tubes most all took out except John, Ted Duncan, Mark and myself.  We decided to run down to the falls while Nick and Landon shuttled down to get us.  We bombed on down towards the falls and had one traffic jam in a tight spot.  The falls was a lot of fun so we went up and hucked it again.  While eating Burger King, Ted Duncan said, "... if this run were dam released it would beat the Nantahala seven ways to Sunday!"  Middle Paint Creek was a memorable first trip for MUWC.