Canoe Camping on the French Broad River

I have wanted to go on a canoe trip for a long time, but just have never put one together. Garett Jackson and I had a backpacking trip planned during a break prior to graduation, but he ended up injuring his ankle. Rather than cancel completely, we elected for an early season canoe camping trip, which would be much easier on his ankle. We were also able to take his two young sons along. Apparently, the French Broad River is one of the oldest rivers in the world, right here in our backyard in Western North Carolina.

Day One on the French Broad River. Our course on the river is the blue line. Put in was near the lower left of the map, where the green balloon is. The river flows south to north and we camped at the near the green balloon in the upper right of the map. We floated about 8 miles. Along the way we fished a little, with no success. Garett took the bow and I the stern.

Day Two on the French Broad River. We pushed off around 9 am under cloudy skies. It never really warmed up much, but was warm enough in the 60s. It only managed to sprinkle on us for about 15 minutes. The outfitter we rented the canoe from said it would take about six hours the second day to cover the 12 miles, but with the high water and good flows we covered it in just over three hours.  It was pretty smooth paddling, except for one spot where there is a tree all the way across the river. At the lowest spot there was still about six inches of the trunk in the way. Garett ended up jumping out onto the tree and pulling the bow over and then I jumped out and pushed us the rest of the way over, It was a little sketchy for a minute, but everything went fine.