For those of you who haven't already found out from their web site, our own Joan Hutton was named American Whitewater April Volunteer of the Month for her work coordinating volunteers for Tallulah release weekends. If you've ever been one of "Joan's people" at the Tallulah, you know how much that honor is deserved. Saturday,

April 1, was my first and so far only experience volunteering at a Tallulah release. I didn't work the Top of the Stairs (formerly known as Boater Registration) and I didn't even visit the launch platform, so I can't say anything about those assignments. I spent the morning working Boater Parking (where the job description is to deal with the Rangers and the boaters) and the afternoon working the foot bridge (where the job consists of dealing with the non-boaters who are curious about the kayakers, ticked that they can't use the south stairs to either go up to the rim or down to the river, or both).

The first thing Joan doesn't tell you is that if Joan wants you at the release, you will be at the release. Five minutes of listening to the Rangers (no, they're not all Rangers — they actually come from several different divisions of DNR — but Rangers seems like a good general term) makes it clear that they LOVE Joan. That makes sense, since she co-ordinates the volunteers for all the release days from all the participating organizations, not just GCA, and makes release days "run like a well-oiled machine." Be warned: if you don't respond to her Eddy Line notice and Joan decides she really wants you there, I have no doubt she could make one call and have a band of men in green/tan/brown uniforms at your door about 5:00 a.m.

Joan doesn't tell you that Boater Parking requires more diplomacy than serving as ambassador to the UN. The Rangers tend to be an orderly lot, and are understandably concerned that the parking lot may not be big enough for the number of boaters, so they want to save space. That means they'd like to see the earliest boater vehicles parked nose-up to the fence and the rest in nose-to-nose double lines.

You may be surprised to read this, but white water paddlers are really not park-in-straight-lines kind of folks. Fortunately, when they ask why its necessary, there's a ready-made answer: because the Rangers want them to. The result, haphazard lines with large open areas of boats, equipment, dogs and mingling boaters worked fine for the fairly small crowd of about 150 boaters.

Actually, the Rangers were all very pleasant. When they're not telling you how much they love Joan, they're talking about how much they like the release days. When you hear their chatter on the radio (the old, large, heavy, hard-to-comprehend-anything government-issue radio, not to be confused with Joan's newer, smaller, lighter and even-harder-to-comprehend-anything units), they certainly sound like they're enjoying the day. They also obviously think white water boaters are a little crazy, but they're hardly alone in that. What I didn't know about white water boaters — at

least those experienced and dedicated enough to run the gorge — is how prone they are to talking about paddling as opposed to actually paddling. A few boaters arrived before the parking lot officially opened at 9:00, and several shortly after 9:00.

The most common question was "When can we paddle?" (to which the response was "Not until Georgia Power and the Rangers determine the river level is stabilized"). The river was ready to go about 9:25, but a lot of the earliest arrivals — including some who asked when they could start — hadn't made a move towards the stairs by 11:00.

Another surprise was the questions from boaters walking from parked vehicles to the port-a-potties. "Are they clean?"" "Do they smell okay?" "Are some 'men's' and some 'women's." "Is there paper in them?" "Is there enough paper to last the day/weekend?" "Do the locks work?" All from people who routinely relieve themselves in the woods and change clothes in the open.

Joan does tell you that Hurricane Falls, right below the foot bridge, is LOUD. Unlike the Boater Parking area, the "conversations" at the bridge — which actually consist of yelling back and forth from a distance of three feet or less — are mostly with non-boater park visitors. The boaters mostly just pass the bridge on the way down the stairs to the river, though a few stop to look from the bridge at the huge foam, crazy criss-cross hole, 90 degree right turn to avoid the massive rock wall Hurricane Falls and feel compelled to mention "I could run that."

Joan doesn't tell you that answering the questions from the non-paddlers at the foot bridge would require a complete understanding of dams, the gorge itself, both rims, Northeast Georgia geography and Deliverance. Most want to know why they can't use the south stairs, and some of those say they can avoid the boaters coming down, but they usually understand when they see boaters with kayaks blocking half their field of vision or spanning the rails from side to side.

Another question is how the release level compares with the usual level. One to two minutes of yelling to them about the nearly non-existent normal "flow," the 500-on- Saturday vs. 700-on-Sunday release level and the effect of such a difference on the rapids and the boaters was usually enough to cause their eyes to glaze over and make them decide they have to leave before my limited supply of knowledge was exhausted.

Joan doesn't tell you the "miscellaneous" questions would be a challenge for a reference librarian. "How do I get to the end of the Panther Creek Trail?" (I can drive it, but I can't describe it: drive to Toccoa and find a cop to ask.) "Would the bridge be under water if the dam were blown up?" (I dunno, but you might want to ask the men from Homeland Security who will meet you at the top of the stairs.) "How do you pronounce ' L' Eau d' Or Falls' and what does it mean?" (Ich weiss nicht; ich spreche nur Deutsch.) "Are the north stairs or the south stairs longer?" (I dunno that one either: the south stairs have 327 risers (lowerers?) between the rim and where they pass the bridge. You climb the north stairs and then come back down and let me know how many on that side.)

Joan also doesn't tell you that ALL the non-boater tourists, including the older couple who looked and sounded Japanese, know Deliverance was partly filmed in the gorge. Folks want to know where Jon Voight hung from the cliff, where the canoe got broken, where the "piggy" scene was filmed and where the boy with the banjo sat. (The best I could tell them was that I thought most of the filming was done on the Chattooga rather than in the gorge.) Joan won't tell you, but if you volunteer for the foot bridge, you should make sure to at least read "Filming Deliverance" in Welander, Sehlinger and Otey's "A Canoeing and Kayaking and Guide to Georgia".

One other thing Joan will tell you — correctly — is that volunteering for a Tallulah release is a great way to spend a pleasant day while serving the sport and the community. Remember that when she advertises for volunteers for the November release days. And get there a little early: its worth it to see the river come alive when they open the dam.

One last thing: congratulations to Ashley Bowen of Chattanooga or thereabouts, who made her maiden Tallulah Gorge run after working Boater Parking all day. Way to go, girl. (Joan promised to make her maiden gorge run on a release Saturday in November.)

By Rick Bellows
From The Eddy Line, May 2006

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