The Ultimate Guide to Tennessee's Great Paddling! Tennessee truly has something for every paddler, whether float trips down dark water trails of swamp rivers or kayaking excursions along whitewater streams. Paddling Tennessee describes the best and most accessible routes, including Reelfoot Lake and the Hatchie River in the west; the Volunteer State’s contribution to great rivers of the world—the Duck; and the crown jewel of Southern Appalachian paddling destinations—the Hiwassee River. Carefully chosen to suit most beginning to intermediate paddlers, each route provides access to wilderness for city residents and visitors alike. This updated and revised edition features the latest paddling information as well as gorgeous, full-color photography throughout.
In August 1998 Kim Trevathan summoned his beloved 45-pound German shepherd mix, Jasper, and paddled a canoe down the Tennessee River, an adventure chronicled in Paddling the Tennessee River: A Voyage on Easy Water. Twenty years later, in Against the Current: Paddling Upstream on the Tennessee River, he invites readers on a voyage of light-hearted rumination about time, memory, and change as he paddles the same river in the same boat--but this time going upstream, starting out in early spring instead of late summer. In sparkling prose, Trevathan describes the life of the river before and after the dams, the sometimes daunting condition of its environment, its banks' host of evolving communities--and also the joys and follies of having a new puppy, 65-pound Maggie, for a shipmate. Trevathan discusses the Tennessee River's varied contributions to the cultures that hug its waterway (Kentuckians refer to it as a lake, but Tennesseans call it a river), and the writer's intimate style proves a perfect lens for the passageway from Kentucky to Tennessee to Alabama and back to Tennessee. In choice observations and chance encounters along the route, Trevathan uncovers meaningful differences among the Tennessee Valley's people--and not a few differences in himself, now an older, wiser adventurer. Whether he is struggling to calm his land-loving companion, confronting his body's newfound aches and pains, craving a hard-to-find cheeseburger, or scouting for a safe place to camp for the night, Trevathan perseveres in his quest to reacquaint himself with the river and to discover new things about it. And, owing to his masterful sense of detail, cadence, and narrative craft, Trevathan keeps the reader at the heart of the journey. The Tennessee River is a remarkable landmark, and this text exhibits its past and present qualities with a perspective only Trevathan can provide.
In late August 1998, Kim Trevathan and his dog, Jasper, set out by canoe on a long, slow trip down the 652 miles of the Tennessee River, the largest tributary of the Ohio. Trevathan wanted to experience the river in its entirety, from Knoxville's narrow, winding channel, which flows past rocky bluffs, to the wide-open waters of Kentucky Lake at its lower end. Over the course of the five-week voyage, Trevathan rediscovered the people and places that made history on the Tennessee's banks. He crossed the path of the explorer Meriwether Lewis along the Natchez Trace, noted the sites of Ulysses S. Grant's Civil War battles, and passed Hiwassee Island, the spot where a teenaged runaway named Sam Houston lived with Cherokee Chief Jolly. Trevathan also came to know the modern river's dwellers, including a towboat pilot, two couples who traded in their landlocked homes for life on the river, a campground owner, and a meteorologist for NASA. He placed his life in the hands of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lock operators as he and Jasper navigated the river's nine dams. Paddling the Tennessee River is a powerful travel narrative that captures the river's wild, turbulent, and defiant past and confronts what it has become--an overused and overdeveloped series of lakes. But first and foremost, the book is the story of a man and his dog, riding low enough to smell the water and to discover the promise of a slow river running through the southern heartland. The Author: Kim Trevathan, who earned his M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Alabama, works as a new media writer and producer and writes a column for the Maryville Daily Times. His essays and short stories have been published in The Distillery, New Millennium Writings, The Texas Review, New Delta Review, and Under the Sun. He lives in Rockford, Tennessee.
"Coldhearted River explores the river's past, invoking the ghosts of the Shawnee and Cherokee, Daniel Boone and the French fur trappers who arrived before him, early settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee, such as James Robertson and John Donelson, and a binge-drinking ex-farmer named Ulysses Grant, who won his first significant battle at Fort Donelson, early in the Civil War."--Jacket.
At-a-glance information for each river section helps paddlers determine the river that's right for them. Stream overviews, gauge and shuttle information, names of rapids and suggestions on how to run them, along with a little history, make this guide not only an interesting read, but a must for every boater hitting the Kentucky streams.
"You want to what?" Barb regards her husband with incredulity at the prospect of paddling down the entire length of the mighty Mississippi River in their recently completed tandem kayak. Paddle for a Purpose sweeps the reader into a journey of faith and personal discovery, as Barb and Gene feel called to volunteer with charity organizations in quaint river towns along one of the most scenic and powerful river systems in America. Against a backdrop of picturesque settings and the river's changing moods, exciting and often humorous accounts of adventure and mishap intermingle with inspiring stories of healing, renewal, beauty, compassion and trust in God.
From its headwaters on the southern slope of the Tennessee Valley divide near Dahlonega to its confluence with the Oostanaula to form the Coosa in Rome, the Etowah is a river full of interesting surprises. Paddle over Native American fish weirs and past the Etowah Indian Mounds, one of the most intact Mississippian Culture sites in the Southeast. See the quarter-mile tunnel created to divert the Etowah during Georgia’s gold rush and the pilings from antebellum bridges burned in the Civil War. This guide offers all the information needed for even novice paddlers to feel comfortable jumping in a boat and heading downstream, including detailed, accurate maps; put in/take out and optimal river flow information; mile-by-mile points of interest; and an illustrated natural history guide to help identify animals and plants commonly seen in and around the river. A fishing primer offers tips to understand the habits of some of the many native fish species found in the Etowah, from trout in the river’s upper reaches to bass and bream in the midsection and catfish and drum below Lake Allatoona. Along the way, river explorers will come to understand the threats facing this unique Georgia place, and the guide offers suggestions for how to take action to help protect the Etowah and keep its beauty and biodiversity safe for future explorers. A Wormsloe Foundation nature book.
Outdoor recreation abounds in Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in Tennessee and Kentucky. This book describes opportunities for paddling, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, and more.
Covering thousands of miles of Georgia's waterways, Canoeing & Kayaking Georgia is the definitive guide to Georgia's whitewater to wilderness swamps -- and everything in between. This updated edition incorporates the exhilarating new urban whitewater course in Columbus, and the recently established water trails that actively welcome recreational paddlers throughout the state. Now expanded to cover more waterways in Southwest Georgia -- Kinchafoonee, Muckalee, and Ichawaynochaway Creeks -- you only need one book to figure out where to float, no matter what type of boat you paddle.
