GA: Amicalola Creek: The Scouting Trip

My typical Sunday paddle usually starts out meeting Doc for a 6:00am breakfast at the Huddle House in Cumming, but this wasn’t a typical paddle and I was an invited guest. Doc, two of his friends and I were going to paddle the upper section of Amicalola Creek.

After a 7:30am breakfast Doc and I drove to what was going to be our take out, the park at the Hwy 53 Bridge (crossing Amicalola Creek about 6 miles west of Dawsonville), where we met Gary and Kenneth. From there we drove up to the 6 Mile put-in. This is Dawson County Park which has good access as well as camping.

I’m not sure what time it was when we finally started downstream. It wasn’t important. Neither Doc nor I had been down this creek but it was on our list. River level wasn’t important either. We wanted to see what it was like and then we could watch the USGS gage and decide when to paddle it again. The river gage on this day was 0.53 and for you readers this is a boney level so plan on dragging bottom and getting stuck on the rocks many times. There are a few surprising drops and it may have potential to be an exciting river at higher levels, providing the ledges aren’t washed out. We did a lot of navigating around rocks and a lot of scooting over the rocks we got stuck on. There are so many rocks you couldn’t miss them all. Two deadfalls completely blocked the river which required us to get out of our kayaks and drag them over the fallen trees. If they are gone when you paddle through, then Doc and I probably removed them with our chainsaws…but don’t tell anyone. The scenery in this section is beautiful and there aren’t any houses.  At a place called “The Devil’s Elbow” you find a 30-40 bank to jump off or a rope swing which ever you choose. We passed on both.

We had a fun day on the river even though it took longer than we expected. We spent about 7 hours paddling the 6 miles. I haven’t checked the mileage but will take my GPS the next time we paddle this section. The next trip on the Amicalola Creek will be the wild and scenic Section 2, from the Hwy 53 Bridge down to the Etowah River and Kelly Bridge.