Southeastern Whitewater: Fifty of the Best River Trips from Alabama to West Virginia

Monte Smith

1 Yeah, sure, it's about the only thing going....
Good book to have, but ratings are way too high for one thing (allowing one to commonly employ the phrase..."dude, Monte's an open boater!").

Second there are a few examples of lines that have changed considerably, and where it would be dangerous to follow his advice. The example that comes to mind most prominently is on Section IV, where in the Five Falls he has "Crack-in-the-rock" all wrong.

If the book was updated for "today's" levels, the bad/changed lines corrected, and somewhat more humility delivered from Monte, this'd be the killer book it tries to approach being.

Yes, it still is the best thing going. For now....

2 A Southeastern Must Read
As an intermediate paddler I consider this book almost my bible. The TRIP scale is immensely useful for selecting trips and pre-evaluating what are suitable trips depending on my skills and that of the company I am with. I have found Monte's characterization and ratings of the rapids right on which is rare (example. Benner's Carolina book is excellent but the Tuckaseegee gorge is no class 2/3 river like the Nantahala is). The writing is superb and amusing, each section contains a wealth of information on nearby alternate trips, gradient statistics, length, gauge, etc. along with Monte's comments and injected personality which I found entertaining. The book has a wealth of rapid pictures too which I usually can't find with the exception of W. Nealy's maps and cartoons. Using this book I have been able to plot which rivers I need to become proficient on first. Next to checking the water levels, this is my primary source for plotting an itinerary up to Appalachia.

3 The Real Story
If you are going whitewater boating in the Southeast and you want to buy just one book, then this is it. Monte Smith describes all the best whitewater in the southern Appalachians and he soe a great job of it. The descriptions are both amusing and informative. His TRIP scale is extremely useful, although it defies any brief description here.

I do have a criticism or two. First, Monte makes too many references to his other books. Second, Monte is a little full of himself. The envelope has been pushed far since his hey (sp?) day, and there are many more skilled and significant paddlers out there today. Despite those criticisms, the fact is that Southeastern Whitewater is now THE definitive regional whitewater guidebook for the southeast. There are more comprehensive state guidebooks (Benner's Carolina Whitewater or Corbett's Virginia White Water) but Monte Smith's book covers all the best whitewater in the whole region.

4 The best single guidebook on southeastern creeking
Southeastern Whitewater describes fifty of the best whitewater paddling trips in the Southern Appalachians, ranging from the Little River Canyon to Big Sandy Creek and located in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. It won't replace Carolina Whitewater, Northern Georgia Canoeing, or other detailed state or watershed-specific books because it doesn't include everything (for example only the Cartecay and Lower Conasauga represent Georgia). On the other hand, it covers the entire southern Appalachians, so no matter where you are in the area this one book will describe something nearby to paddle. Only quality whitewater streams are included, so if it's in the book it's worthwhile doing. None of the trips in the book are appropriate for unaccompanied beginning paddlers. The average difficulty is Class III (IV) (similar to the Big South Fork, Nolichucky, or Ocoee) and about a third of the trips are more difficult than the Ocoee. Finally, Smith only included streams that he had paddled multiple times and knew well, so the detailed trip descriptions are outstanding. Many chapters have at least one full-page action picture of open-boaters doing a signature rapid (for example Julie Keller and Francis Cheung are featured in Entrance Rapid and Diamond Splitter).

In addition to 50 detailed trip descriptions, Southeastern Whitewater introduces the Trip Relational Information Profile (TRIP) rating scale, an elegantly robust new way of comparing rivers on both specific and global dimensions of difficulty. The TRIP scale incorporates and normalizes nine dimensions of stream difficulty, "weights" them, and derives an overall difficulty rating. The nine dimensions include; Difficulty of Rapids, Volume x Gradient Interaction, Average Gradient, Streambed Morphology, Continuousness of Rapids, Maximum Gradient, Total Gradient, Inaccessibility, and Reputation. The 26 pages in Chapter 2 explain the TRIP scales. One-hundred is the average for each item; a 10 point difference is about half again as hard and a 20 point difference is about twice as hard. For example, many of us quickly work-up to the Nantahala (77 overall TRIP points) and become comfortable after doing it several times our first summer of paddling. Indeed, it is common to move right up to the Chattooga Section III (86 points). It's a lot tougher than the Nanty (10 pts or about half again as difficult), but it's usually within range except for the Bull. So... is Section IV a logical progression?. Section IV has an overall TRIP rating of 116, 30 points more than Section III. Whoa!! It's more than twice as hard. Definitely time to reconsider. The lower Tellico (96 TRIP pts) and Ocoee (104 TRIP pts) are more logical areas to become acquainted with first.