Beginner’s Guide to Rafting on the Ocoee River

Wondering what to expect when rafting on the Chattooga River?  Beginner's Guide to Rafting on the Ocoee River

Well, You Asked for it…

Only to get pummeled by rocks, struck by whitewater waves – countless gallons of them, to lose your razor sharp paddle if you’re not careful once you fall out, and to face oncoming boulders with your feet downstream so you can bump away using your heels like Neil Armstrong bouncing off a moon rock; the alternative means bumping away using your face.

Jackets and Sunscreen

Other than that, we expect you’ll be comfortable as long as you wear a jacket in the winter and sunscreen in the summer. But you’ll still need a jacket in the summer, if only just to tie it around your waist or to some apparatus in the raft, because the river spray likes to gets down into your bones once you’ve been out in it for an hour, two, three, four – or all dripping day.

Life Preservers

And when you do fall in you’ll certainly want to put it on. The jacket. That life preserver you’ll wear the whole trip, and since we can foresee 14 different rapids you may pass through on a full adventure, that will give you more than enough chances to use it.

Our Guides

Note the pictures of our guides.

Many of them have brawny biceps – stringy actually – as if the river had made them lean and elongated after hundreds if not thousands of miles paddled with pasty tenderfeet just like yourself.

How to Hold a Paddle

Yes, you’re a beginner. A bitty lump of river clay. A lumpy little beastie. Did we mention lumps? It rhymes with whumps, which is what your guide will do to you good from behind if you’re not watching where your paddle goes: “Up in the air with it!” {~WHUMP~} “That mother’s a shark tooth on a pole you lumpy little beastie!”

(We leave it to your imagination to illustrate exactly what the whump is, how it’s delivered and where.)

Lunch Time and You

If you’re very lucky you’ll have paid for a catered lunch arranged by Raft One. If you’re merely lucky you’ll have brought your own lunch that isn’t waterlogged by the time we give you to eat it. If you’re unlucky a bear will pop out of the forest, swim into the river and lick it from your open mouth.

But we’ve never seen this happen other than once or twice in the past few days; we’ve just learned to enjoy it. If you would like to schedule a rafting trip down the Chattooga river contact us at 1-888-723-8663 for more information and let’s enjoy the adventure together.