Governor’s race taking shape
From Tom Baxter and GONSO:
Maybe it says something about how next year’s governor’s race is shaping up that the early jostling has involved two back surgeries.
The more widely publicized of these was performed, reportedly with good results, this week on Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. He had been viewed as a top contender in the race for the Republican nomination until he announced at a tearful press conference earlier this month that a back problem had convinced him to abandon the governor’s race and run for his current job.
There was so much skepticism about the real reason for Cagle’s departure that he showed his X-rays and MRIs to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway as proof he genuinely is in too much pain to take on such a big race. No doubt pain did have a great deal to do with Cagle’s surprise decision, but the timing – a week after the end of the session, long enough to get on the phone and test the climate for political fundraising – suggests money might have had a little to do with it also.
Since Cagle’s departure, the Republican dominos have fallen in a striking pattern. Three potential contenders from the Atlanta metro area – U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens, and state House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter – have decided they’re not getting in the governor’s race.
Again, there must be a lot of reasons why they all opted not to get in this race. But a casual glance at the business pages suggests one overriding factor: any campaign that might have counted on Atlanta development money is finding out there’s a lot less of it available in this election cycle. (Not to mention that there are four Republicans already dialing for dollars: Secretary of State Karen Handel, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, state Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton and states rights advocate Ray McBerry.)
Meanwhile, two candidates from outside metro Atlanta who weren’t on the radar for this race have jumped in it. Senate President Eric Johnson of Savannah switched from the lieutenant governor’s race, thus avoiding the returning Cagle and upping the ante on his own ambitions. U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, who wasn’t even on the short list of Republican congressmen interested in the race, has also been letting colleagues know he intends to announce soon.
Both add some intriguing dimensions to the race. Johnson has the potential to benefit from the GOP’s growth in eastern Georgia, and he’s already put together an organization. As an up-and-coming legislator and during his first couple of years in Congress, Deal enjoyed a best-and-brightest image in the Democratic Party that reminded some of Roy Barnes. Since his party switch in 1995, Deal has swung more to the right on issues like immigration, and he never really assumed the leadership position in his adopted party which some had envisioned for him as a Democrat. But it will be interesting to see what cross-party appeal he might have next year.
Speaking of Barnes, the other back surgery was the one performed on him back before Christmas of last year. He told a former staffer the week after that operation that he was about 50-50 on getting in the race. If he was 50-50 after going through something like that, Barnes might seem likely to make his fourth bid for governor. But sources who’ve talked with him in recently haven’t seen any signs that he’s committed.
Until he makes his intentions known, which should be some time in May, the Democratic field consists of three people with whom the former governor has important connections: David Poythress, whom Barnes appointed state adjutant general, Attorney General Thurbert Baker, with whom Barnes carefully coordinated his 1998 and 2002 races, and House Minority Leader Dubose Porter, who was a floor leader for Barnes when he was governor. Whether Barnes is in this race or not, he’s going to have a lot to do with how it’s run.
Tom Baxter is editor of the Southern Political Report and senior vice president of its parent company, InsiderAdvantage, a media and polling firm. He was the chief political correspondent at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 20 years. [full bio]
ATDC showcases high-tech optimism
The Advanced Technology Development Center’s Entrepreneurs Showcase, held today at Midtown’s Biltmore, wasn’t exactly a hot spot for bellyaching about the recession.
That’s because optimism rules at the annual event, where the Georgia Tech high-tech incubator “graduates” some of its babies, and showcases more of them to potential investors and business partners. The glass-is-half-full mentality is refreshing to an out-of-work journalist.
Of the 30 ATCD show-casers, the one’s that immediately grabbed my interest were (naturally) the handful that could enhance blogging, social networking and other communication enterprises. One that appears to be pretty far along is Evoca, which allows bloggers, business people, political activists — whomever — to create digital audio recordings via telephone and to post them on websites.
Then there’s Balaya, an earlier-stage Savannah-based company that has developed a tool, called Tick-It, designed to integrate social networks, e-mails, feeds and IM onto a ticker that scrolls along the bottom of the computer screen. CEO Bob Nunnally is a retired fighter pilot who worked after the military for futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, of “Future Shock” fame. He’s hoping that gave him a good eye for what the next big thing might be.
“[Nunnally and his fellow cofounders] thought there was a space where social media was going that we could slip into,” Nunnally said.
The other interesting area to me was the environment. Suniva, one of four company’s that graduate this year from ATDC, is producing photovoltaic cells for solar energy — and claims to have developed processes that will drive the cost for solar energy down and make the products more efficient.
None of this year’s showcasers quite so squarely fit the bill as green technology. But several will have environmental benefits if they’re successful. QOil Technologies VP Allen Vance stressed that his company, which operates out of ATDC lab on Fifth Street, has a “clean and green story.” QOil has developed a device, which it plans to market to buses and other fleet vehicles, that monitors the quality of motor oil as it goes through the system.
Using cell-phone technology, the device in the field tells QOil’s server when the vehicle needs an oil change or whether there’s an unknown mechanical problem. That saves money and can prevent breakdowns.
But QOil also might save petroleum because it would allow the fleet manager to put off an unnecessary oil change, which might have been scheduled otherwise whether the oil actually was dirty or not. The connection to saving energy may sound mundane, but it’s also kind of elegant that a business solution would go hand in hand with environmental efficiency.
When President Obama, Al Gore and, for that matter, Newt Gingrich talk about the transformative power that technology might have on our economy, they tend to evoke images of hydrogen-fueled cars and windmills. But small steps by “baby” companies could play a role as well.
AJC’s redesign blues
No. Not that kind of blues.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution now features a very blue masthead in a new bold font, along with other radical changes unveiled in its redesign today. The paper itself is narrower, the body copy is printed using a new font, and the redesign incorporates some content innovations.
So far at least, the reaction of readers on a post about the print edition’s changes by Editor Julia Wallace seems pretty harsh. In fairness, it’s not uncommon for readers to respond to design changes negatively, because they were used to the old design.
This is the much-vaunted AJC 2.0 project, which Wallace and her top editors had been working on for a couple of years. At the time, Wallace and the AJC brass had talked with great optimism about 2.0. Unfortunately, it’s being implemented on the heals of staff cutbacks and the gutting of the paper’s editorial board, which are likely to make the redesign feel to most readers and advertisers like a downsizing.
Fresh Loaf’s Scott Henry notes that it typically takes time for readers to get used to a redesign, but takes issue with the paper’s “promise of ‘More optimistic, positive stories” in the Living section.”
I like the idea of guiding readers toward “Pro/Con” opinion columns tied to news stories and to be a bit more transparent about sources. But one person I spoke with today noted the sports listings have become so small that they’re too difficult to read.
Council’s Anne Fauver won’t run for re-election
Anne Fauver, the city councilwoman for much of Midtown, Virginia-Highlands and Candler Park, won’t run for re-election, according to the gay Atlanta news site, Project Q Atlanta.
Atlanta Councilwoman Anne Fauver
That leaves her 2005 opponent, Steve Brodie, as the only announced candidate for the seat. But candidates for this year’s city elections have to early September to qualify to run.
“I believe that eight years is about the right amount of time for public service in the same position,” Project Q quotes Fauver as saying in a letter. “That’s enough time to try out your fresh ideas, figure out how the system works, and expend all that wonderful energy for change that motivated you to run in the first place. After eight years you begin to be part of the system, and you find yourself with less energy to pursue better ideas and, frankly, with less faith in the ability of the system to be responsive to them.”
A common rap against Fauver was that she acted from the start a part of the system. She sided, for example, with Mayor Franklin and against most Neighborhood Planning Units in her district during her first term in the fight over the Piedmont Park parking deck. Propelled by anger over the parking deck and other issues, Brodie — who had virtually no prior civic involvement — lost to her by only five votes in the 2005 election.
Candidates may qualify for Atlanta’s municipal elections Aug. 31-Sept. 4. The election, which includes contests for City Council, Council president and mayor, is scheduled for Nov. 3.
Johnson now in guv’s race
With Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle out, longtime state Sen. Eric Johnson jumped this morning into the 2010 governor’s race.
State Sen. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah
Johnson has an all-over-the-place reputation as one of the Republican leaders in the Senate. Sometimes, the Savannah architect sounds — even acts — like a smart guy with a good sense of humor. But he also can get a bit prickly and has a penchant for saying the stupidest things.
Overall, conservatives are likely to be pleased Johnson has thrust himself into the race. Many are a bit mistrustful of the three leading Republicans already in the contest (Karen Handel, John Oxendine, and Austin Scott), because each has strayed from ultra-conservative orthodoxy at one time or another.
Johnson was going to run for lieutenant governor in 2010. That changed when Cagle dropped out of the race last week because of health problems. Cagle certainly gave him a push by announcing that he’d instead make the less demanding run for re-election as lieutenant governor.
Johnson has lined up a lot of GOP establishment support. Among the folks working on his campaign: rich guy Jamie Reynolds as finance chairman, former Perdue press aide Derrick Dickey, former state party staffer Ben Fry, and Randy Evans, who was the state party’s expert at disenfranchising minority voters, as legal counsel.
Democratic candidates Thurbert Baker, DuBose Porter and Randy Poythress are still a bit frozen in lining up support, because many Democrats are waiting to see if former Gov. Roy Barnes will run.
From Johnson’s press release come the blah-blah things that politicians always say:
“As I traveled the state campaigning and visiting with Georgians from all walks of life, I was thrilled to see the support and encouragement we received in every corner of this state,” said Johnson. “Georgians recognize that we need a steady, tested, and experienced leader to address the challenges we face as a state and to build on the progress we’ve made under Republican leadership. My vision for our future focuses on how we can create new 21st Century jobs, reform education to improve student achievement, and ensure effective and ethical government. Effective leadership is about trust. I hope to earn the trust of the Georgians and the opportunity to serve as their Governor.”
Hmmm … “to build on all the progress we’ve made under Republican leadership?” Like I say, the guy does have a good sense of humor.
Speaker Richardson: zero foes, nearly $1 million
From AtlantaUnfiltered:
House Speaker Glenn Richardson has 54,000 constituents in his legislative district in eastern Paulding County. Just two of them donated money to the speaker’s 2007-08 election fund.
Three businesses in the 19th District also gave to the speaker’s campaign, as did the Paulding Chamber of Commerce. Together, the six donations — totaling $5,840 – added up to less than 1 percent of the $953,000 that Richardson raised in that period.
The rest of Richardson’s financial supporters, as they say, ain’t from around those parts. One in four aren’t even from Georgia.
Click to read the rest of Richardson campaign finance story at AtlantaUnfiltered.
Atlanta books riding high
Even after the announcement of Doug Blackmon’s Pulitzer for Slavery by Another Name, Atlanta book lovers had reasons last week to be excited.
New York Times reporter Warren St. John, whose Outcasts United is an account of Clarkston’s all-refugee Fugees soccer team, spoke at the Carter Center on Wednesday, along with Fugees coach Luma Mufle. My pal Ellen Beattie, who directs the Southeastern office of the wonderful International Rescue Committee, helped steer St. John through the Clarkston refugee community when a couple of years ago, when he was researching his original article on the team. Ellen said St. John’s reading and Q&A session with St. John and Mufle were stupendous.
The next night was Marc Fitten’s turn. Fitten, a very nice guy who happens to be editor of The Chattahoochee Review, just saw his first novel — Valeria’s Last Stand — published by Bloomsbury. Even before his Carter Center reading on Thursday, he got a heap of positive reviews on BookBrowse, a user-generated site. More significantly (to me), local novelist Charles McNair was raving to me about Valerie’s Last Stand the other day.
Both events were cosponsored by Little Five Points’ A Capella Books, which hopes to continue its roll with a reading and signing this week with Jessica Handler, whose memoir, Invisible Sisters, tells the story of growing up in a family that lost two other daughters to disease. The event is 7 p.m. Thursday at the Opal Gallery in L5P.
Upper Chattahoochee – Sautee Creek to Highway 255 bridge
This is the second of three trip diaries on a weekend canoe run of the Chattahoochee River. I hope these articles will guide others to canoeing the Chattahoochee. The first installment was titled “Upper Chattahoochee River in canoe, with dog.”
Sautee, Ga., is a cute little cluster of buildings on a fork in the road four miles southeast of the tourist’s overdose known as Helen. It’s also a rock’s throw away from the put-in for the first stretch of the Chattahoochee River that’s actually suited for canoeing.
Phoebe, Peanut and Ellen ride down the Chattahoochee River.
If you get to Sautee by heading east on Georgia Highway 17, take a left onto Highway 255, then an immediate right onto Lovers Lane. A couple of hundred yards to the east, you’ll cross Sautee Creek. There’s a dirt road to the right and a small parking area just after the bridge.
My paddling companion, Alex, and I walked down the dirt road for a bit to make sure there weren’t any trees down across the narrow, muddy waterway. After the previous night’s storm, it wouldn’t be surprising to find one. And if a tree had fallen all the way across the creek, we might have wanted to put-in downstream from the hazard.
But we lucked out. Muddy water was moving at a pretty good clip down the creek, but there didn’t appear to be any trees across it.
Because we didn’t get on the road in Atlanta until nearly 10, it was now almost noon. We unloaded the canoes. Alex and the dogs waited at the put-in, while Ellen and I ran a quick, six-mile shuttle and left her car near the next bridge on the Chattahoochee River (also on Highway 255). [I’ve biked this shuttle in the past and; though it’s a bit hilly, it’s not a bad ride and the shoulders are nice and wide. It's a nice way to run a shuttle.]
Ellen and I came back in my car and slid the boats down a muddy bank into the water. Alex was eager to get into his yellow kayak, so he squirmed in and started skittering around. Ellen got Phoebe, her hound dog, into her canoe, and Phoebe stood with her front feet on the bow seat. She commenced to howling — Phoebe, that is, not Ellen.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you,” Ellen said. “That’s what Phoebe does the whole time in the canoe. I hope you can take it, because you’re going to have to listen to her all weekend.”
As Ellen launched, I lured Peanut with a snack into my bow. She immediately assumed the precise possion of Phoebe, with her front feet on the bow, but thankfully she didn’t begin howling.
The Sautee, which may be 20 feet wide, winds between steep banks, before snaking under the two-lane highway bridge. Less than a quarter-mile from our put-in, it meets the Chattahoochee River. At that point the Hooch is a pastoral stream. It widens a bit as it ambles southeasterly down the broad Nacoochee Valley, which is best known for an ancient Indian burial mound, visible from the road a mile or so upstream from where we were.
The mound sits in the middle of a field and is topped by a gazebo, which is more than 100 years old — but not as old as the mound. The Nacoochee Valley actually has some of the oldest Native American artifacts in North Georgia. Arrowheads and beads found in the area go back hundreds if not thousands of years. Much later, the valley was part of the Cherokee Nation.
Then, in 1828, whites found gold in the area — according to most accounts along nearby Dukes Creek, a tributary that enters just upstream from Sautee Creek. That find launched the United States’ first real gold rush, which led to the forced removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears.
Now, the Nacoochee Valley provides a pretty and pastoral — if not exactly wild — landscape. Through this stretch, the river offers gentle pools interspersed with mild shoals that allow novice (and rusty) canoeists to practice their strokes, to turn the boat sideways for waterbed rides over tiny waves, to catch little eddies and to drift back out into the current as the boats leapfrog each other down the river on a beautiful, mild spring day. Or you can just drift and occasionally rudder.
The water was just the right height for a fun run. Overnight, the nearby USGS gauge near Cleveland, Georgia, put the river’s volume at 2,000 cubic feet per second, which would have forced us to move so quickly that we wouldn’t have had time to relax. This level was perfect: Quick enough to keep us moving even if we didn’t stick our paddles in the water, but not so insistent that we would have called it pushy.
Around one bend, we found a jumble of wood that reached all the way across the river. A big tree had fallen, and now other logs were jammed up against it. But we had plenty of time to pull over and take a close look at it. Would we have to carry around? Nah. There was an opening. Ellen walked with the dogs downstream, while I guided my boat through the branches, then I watched the dogs while Ellen and Alex made their ways through.
The most excitement on this stretch was provided by Peanut, who couldn’t stand the fact that her pal Phoebe, along with Ellen and Alex, weren’t together with us in the same boat. She seemed excited to be on the water but so worried that the pack wasn’t together than she started balancing on all for legs on the gunwale rails and the very bow of the boat.
Finally, she realized her predicament, tried to get down and plopped clumsily into the cold water. It was Peanut’s first swim, and she did find — looked a bit shocked at how cold the water was, but immediately knew how to doggie paddle. And once she got over the confusion of which way to go, she realized that she should head right back toward me. I yanked her up by her harness, but she needed surprisingly little help scrambling into the boat.
Budda-budda-bup. Do that doggie shake and shimmy to drive off. Walk around excitedly in the middle of the canoe, head back up to the bow … and start whining again .
A mile downstream from the confluence with the Sautee, rocky outcrops squeeze in on the river, which tightens just a tad. There are small mountains on both sides, but the rapids are still very mild – Class I and the mildest Class II, which means that everything’s an open shoot.
In this kind of water, you head straight for the downstream-pointing “V’s” – open channels that end in a series of friendly little waves. And if you want to slow down or play with the current, or want to watch the young kayaker who’s with you play on the waves, you just point the nose of the boat at a 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock angle into the little eddies that form behind any sizable rock. The backward current that’s circling around to fill in the space behind the rock will catch your boat, as well. With a couple of simple strokes with your paddle, you’re suddenly effortlessly pointing upstream — and the dog, who suddenly thinks this canoeing stuff is quite interesting, is grooving with the ride, watching Alex follow behind us, and enjoying the sunny day.
I last road this stretch in 1992 — I can place the date by the girlfriend I took along — and I remember remarking to her that I was disappointed to see so many summer homes along the way. As far as I know, this entire stretch of river always has been in private hands. In the old days, that meant the wide valleys were the settled parts, while the steeper stretches — I wouldn’t quite call this part of the river a gorge — were thick with green: Mountain laurel lining the river banks, and oak and pine forests climbing up to the ridgetops.
But better roads put this part of Georgia a half hour outside Gainesville, and less than an hour from Alpharetta. Ambitious developers began to stripe the hills with suburban-style cul de sacs, and to drop dream homes on the ridges. Spectacular views for them, a less pristine river corridor for us.
Just as more houses have popped up over time, more pop up as you move downstream on the river — toward Atlanta. But all that settlement couldn’t detract from the splendid day. The narrower river and slightly bigger drops made the rapids more playful.
Phoebe kept baying. Peanut fell in the water one more time. Ellen hooked up her canoe to mine so we could have a snack. And Alex looked more and more comfortable playing in the waves — almost as comfortable as his uncle did in a kayak on this very same stretch more than three decades ago.
On that day, his uncle and I were just a couple of years older than Alex now is. Despite the new houses, the river hadn’t changed nearly as much as I had.
AJC circ plummets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s weekday circulation dropped by a whopping 19.3 percent, the paper reported Saturday.
The un-bylined article, which doesn’t cite its source, apparently is based on a yet-to-be-released Audit Bureau of Circulation report for the six months ending March 31. It says Monday-Saturday circulation was down 19.3 percent from the same six-month period a year earlier, to 264,053, while Sunday circulation was 462,011, or down 7.1 percent.
Like other recent reports in the AJC about declining circulation, this one quotes an AJC exec (this time it’s Bob Eickhoff, a VP of operations) to explain away the nosedive: The paper made a strategic decision to “boost efficiency” early last year by pulling distribution out of 25 counties. It also increased the price for a single copy of the newspaper. Besides, the lousy economy and migration to the Internet is slamming all dailies.
The problem is that the AJC’s executives make the same kind of argument every time circulation reports show that the AJC is among the nation’s leader in circulation dropoffs. Even before the paper’s last round of operational changes, the Atlanta paper had seen one of the steepest drops in circulation among 1oo or so major dailies from 2005 to 2008, according to this fascinating New York Times graphic. And a fall 2008 Audit Bureau of Circulation report showed the paper with the steepest decline in the country among the largest dailies.
It’s clear that all the country’s newspapers are suffering. It’s just as clear, however, that the AJC is having a more difficult time than most in getting readers to pick up the paper.
The AJC brass also argues that online readership growth has more than made up for the reduced print readership:
Hyde Post, vice president, Internet, said ajc.com page views in March were a record 115.5 million, up 9 percent from a year earlier.
Views on mobile devices jumped 250 percent, to 3.5 million. “The next wave of growth appears to be mobile,” Post said.
That’s heartening — but just up to a point. The problem is that online readers often only scan one article or listing; they don’t flip through the whole paper. And, the AJC article fails to mention that online advertising offers so little revenue that the paper would need many multiples of its current readership simply to fund its operations — even when the print bill is factored out.
Upper Chattahoochee River in canoe, with dog
The Upper Chattahoochee River has a special hold on Atlanta canoeists.
Unlike other North Georgia streams — the Etowah, the Cartecay and the Toccoa, for example — the Hooch is an essential part of Atlanta: It’s the area’s main water source and eventually becomes the state’s longest river. On its banks, sits the region’s largest natural playground, the Chattahoochee River National Recreation area.
And though the Chattahoochee is a relatively small river that cuts along the edge of the city rather than smack through its center, it is the closest parallel we have to Mississippi in St. Louis, the Willamette in Portland, or — silly as this may sound — even the Thames in London.
When I’m talking about the Upper Chattahoochee though, I mean the Hooch upstream from Lake Lanier, outside the metro area. At that stage, it’s a small mountain stream that spurts from a rather unimpressive spring on the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and gathers with a few other gurgling brooks before rushing through touristy Helen, Ga.
In Helen, the Chattahoochee’s just a tubing creek. But downstream, the river’s joined by another little stream called Sautee Creek and finally becomes, umm, a river – big enough to carry a enough water for canoes, but still small enough to be confused in low water with other North Georgia paddling rivers that don’t get to be upgraded to anything beyond “creeks”: Amicalola, Talking Rock and Fightingtown.
That wasn’t the case two weeks ago when my childhood friend, Ellen; her 12-year-old son 13-year-old son, Alex; their dog, Phoebe; my dog, Peanut; and I
set off for a two-day paddle on the Chattahoochee. Friday night, April 10, it stormed big time across North Georgia, so the river was certain to be up considerably. The Chattahoochee was bound to have the volume and power of full-fledged river.
It would be Alex’s first river trip in the kayak he’d recently bought from a friend of mine. He’s a physically confident kid who picks up athletic challenges quickly, and he’d taken a kayaking course last year at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.
Still, I’m on the careful side, and I wanted to make sure he’d have a good, learning experience. Plus, Ellen and I each would be giving a dog the magic carpet ride in the bow of our respective Old Town Discovery canoes. Phoebe’s been on a couple of long canoe trips, but I was a bit nervous about Peanut. She’s a rambunctious year-old boxer mix, who has a hard time sitting still while the world goes by without her active participation. I was right to be nervous.
There are several good ways to figure out how challenging a river trip might be. One is just to build up experience: You get to know the difference between a Class I or II river, and Class III, IV or V river, and it becomes second nature to know that — while a Class V run was perfectly reasonable when you were in good paddling shape and were kayaking just with your experienced buddies — maneuvering a clunky Discovery with a puppy in the bow, after you’ve been sitting on your butt in front of a computer for a decade, is a different story.
Plus, you understand that water levels can change everything.
Before we settled on the Chattahoochee, I thought we’d head up to Amicalola Creek, a very pretty, ledgy, little stream near Dawsonville, or to the nearby Etowah River, which is a tad bigger than the Amicalola but just as ledgy very similar overall.
Rain’s often good for those little rivers. The water gets high enough to turn boat-scraping “technical” runs into gushy, fun rapids. On the other hand, too much rain — especially a big storm — can make narrow creek beds hazardous. Fallen trees can span from bank to bank, turning into “strainers” that allow powerful floodwaters to rush through but can trap boats or swimmers.
I looked up the forecast Friday night: Two inches of rain were headed Dawsonville’s way, and Dawson County was under a tornado warning. Uh-oh. Hair boaters might be eager to go creeking on really vertical flood-stage stuff — not me with my dog, Peanut.
Maybe, it was time to check out a wider river with a bit less drop in it. That way we’d be less likely to hit fallen trees and other detritus. And, if we did come across a strainer or two, we’d be more able to stop and take a look without being washed into it.
Late Friday night, I went to the paddler’s favorite government website: the U.S. Geological Survey’s real-time water graphs. Yum, yum, yum, for any paddler.
Sure enough, it showed the water in the Amicalola zooming upward: A gauge went from just over 1 foot to about 1.7, and the real measure of volume — cubic feet per second (CFS) — shot up on the graph like a rocket, from an average level of about 250 cfs (creek territory) to nearly 600 (which appeared to be a record for the date). And all the water that had rained surely hadn’t washed into the creek yet, so it was bound to go higher.
The Etowah looked pretty similar.
So, I checked out the Chattahoochee, which I knew to be a relatively mild run with a couple of nice Class II rapids. The main raps against it: It’s too popular, there are too many houses along it to feel secluded, and it’s a bit wider than some other mountain streams. So in low water it can get a bit rocky. Plus, I wasn’t sure it’d be challenging enough for Alex.
Well, scraping bottom wouldn’t be a problem on this trip. The CFS appeared headed for 2000. But weekend forecast called for no more rain, so we’d be hitting the river after the flood crested. Technical little, rocky rapids would become big wavy ones – roller coaster rides with strong eddies and pretty good hydraulics, perfect for the doggy to get used to riding the rapids, even better for Alex to practice his moves.
Plus because the Chattahoochee’s around 50 feet wide through the stretch we’d be paddling, any fallen trees were less likely to blockade the entire river.
Looked like we lucked out on the water levels and the weather. We were heading to the Chattahoochee.
PART II: Upper Chattahoochee — Sautee Creek to Highway 255 Bridge.
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