Walden’s Ridge Old School River Gauge Readings:

(and other boring gauge Trivial nonsense)

Note while reading this I have hyperlinked as much as I can to help you stay with me on my rambling. And keep coming back to this; Mike “Louie” Lewis and Mr. Ted Hayes are gathering their old notes and I will be adding to this page in the very near future.

The internet is a hell-uv thing, but when you need to know the other runs that aren’t on the AW Website gauge Tie-in. This may help. Matter of fact I have gone high tech and have these levels on a Pocket PC/Palm OS. So when out wondering what to boat I don’t have to use my old man memory.

Note:

These readings are averages that depend on rainfall, how long it’s been since it rained; your luck, and how you’ve been living.

Warning Label:

According to Mr. Ted Hayes (Heavy on the Mister) it takes more rain now to get these runs up now. What use to take an inch of local rain now takes 1.75”-2” inches of rain. The Weather Channel is still a great tool. Memorize the headwaters on the radar screen on these runs, and look for downpours. I got a lot of runs in that way when everyone else stayed home or went to the Ocoee.

PINEY Watershed:

The gauge to check here is at the Piney Takeout, just outside Spring City, Tn.  All gauges listed below must be running just don’t go with one reading unless you are a local puke. If out of town you could waste some time and gas by going with one reading

Here is an old school way to tell if the Piney River is running you need to check the following gauges for a min. of 2.4 ft run on the Piney Gauge. The gauge was installed by myself and Jim Little in 93’ and looks like two retarded blind kids painted it. I plan on installing a new gauge once the new bridge is completed by the T.D.O.T.  Meanwhile the path to the old-present gauge has been cleaned out to make it quicker and safer to read. By the way some owes me a chain saw repair bill.

So with that; check these gauges on-line: We use to check by phone, and now it is the internet…things change, but not that much, and now we have the North.Chick  gauge to help or muddle depending on your mood.

North.Chick: 5.83  

just another data point to help you confirm, never depend on this gauge alone.

Emory: 1880  

very important a must really, but not the final answer.

Town Creek: 434 

 for that warm fuzzy to confirm a good rain pattern, not even in the same state; but affected by the same cold fronts/rain.

Tellico: 1.9 ft 

very important almost in direct line with the Piney, but it is a different mountain range. Do not go by this alone, people get skunked using this alone.

With these readings the Piney will be reading around a 2.5ft between Nov.-Mar. patterns after a big rain that will prime the creek first. Side note: to let you know how things are changing it use to be between Oct-Apr. Ahhhh the times they are a changin’ and it ain’t good.

A Middle  School Way: Go to Mark D' website alabamawhitewater.com He has the T.V.A. rain gauges tied in. Check the following rain gauges. First check the Pikeville rain gauge; it is the closest to the headwaters. Then check the Watts Bar and the Roddy rain gauge, it is the closest to the take-out. A gauge filling of one inch or greater that night will get the Piney going between November and March AFTER it has rain for a while.

An even better way and New School: Go to T.V.A. rain gauges and hit the CRTL key while clicking on rain gauges, then click on the “EXCEL” format, select a whole month to see a priming pattern for the watershed of choice.  You will know instantly what is up, and what’s been happening.

Here are some old notes of mine from the 90's ( I hyperlinked the creek names so you will know which ones I am talking about)

Duskin Creek  3.6" on piney                         

Can be run when the Piney is screaming, and it has a trail beside it.

Stinging Fork 4.0 ft  on piney                       

Watch your water levels here, for the run before the falls, it screams in the mini-gorge when high, after the falls no worries.

White's Creek 3.5 ft  on piney                      

Run this play run as high as you want, NOT a Creek boat run. Take a play or long boat.

Soak Creek 4.0 on piney                              

No big deal here really, mainly a boogie water run

The tiney piney 4.6 on Piney                       

This is a nice underrated run….great for the jaded creeker and his up and coming friends

Fall Creek: 4.6 ft on Piney                            

No big deal here really, mainly a boogie water run

Dunlap Creek 4.0 ft on Piney                      

Ditto: No big deal here really, mainly a boogie water run

Mammy's Creek 4.1 ft on Piney                   

A run for III-IV boater who wants nice water, but relaxing

RICHLAND Watershed: The crown jewels of Walden’s Ridge Creekin’

The gauge to check here is on Backvalley Road right outside Dayton, Tennessee.

Richland: 0" on old gauge, 6" on new?                                  

This is the ultimate Park-n-Huck, with a hiking trail

Polebridge/Morgan: 0" on old gauge, 6" on new?                

Full Contact Creekin’ with penalty points

Henderson: 0" on old gauge, 6" on new?                              

Epic and tiring and worth it

Paine: Flood on old gauge, Flood on new?                          

Manky with wood

McGill: 8" on old gauge   

Intimate, and a great small creek run

Roaring Creek: 10" on old gauge                                           

Fun creek run for a Jaded and a Up-and-Coming to go together. Also can be run very high!

Brush Creek      12”-14” old gauge (This one is funky)        

Morgan’s ugly cousin

Rock Creek: 10" on old gauge                                               

A place for an Ocoee boater to take it up a notch, and not tackle the Chick

Note on the Richland gauge:

I think the new gauge min is 6" and I know for sure on the old gauge 0" is min. because I painted the gauge after a min run. So you can do the math on the differences.

North Chica Watershed:

Oh one more old school/ old dog trick. A quick and painless way to know if Cooper, Cain and the North Chick are running when at the old Hwy 27 bridge, look up at river right, looking upstream, see the 161v High Voltage powerlines. IF there is a waterfall running; coming off the side of the mountain when looking at the powerlines. You are good to go. It has never let me down, even in the summer. Best gauge I know of! Saves you from burning gas and time instead of going to the North Chick  takeout.

Also this will keep you from kicking yourself in the a** for walking down to Cain or Cooper  and not having any water, but seeing water at the takeout on the  Chick. BTDT.

 BTW you have about 75% +chance if a good pattern of winter rain has developed that Little Possum ,Soddy, Falling Water and Deep may have a shot, when that waterfall is running in the winter by reading that waterfall.  Helps save time when you are burning daylight for winter creekin’. The thing to remember that they are NOT in the same watershed, and each of those 4 runs are their own animal on water prediction.

My favorite T.V.A. rain gauges   

If you are good you can beat the river gauges by watching the rain and set your shuttle before the creeks get up. These creeks listed below are just a tip of the ice berg on what you can do.

Tennessee

Apalachia Dam-            Coker Creek, TurtleTown Creek

Cades Cove-                  All the Smokey Runs

Copperhill-                      TurtleTown Creek

Crab Orchard-                Emory-Plateau runs

Dayton-                           Richland Creek Watesheds:

Dunlap-                           North Chick Watersheds, Deep Creek, Possums, and Soddy's

Pikeville-                         Piney, Richland, Morgan, McGill, Roaring basically the Walden’s Ridge runs

Raccoon Mountain      -Middle Creek, Suck Creek

Roddy-                            White's Creek Watershed

Stratton Meadows-        Santeelah

Watts Bar-                      Piney Watersheds

Alabama

Flat Rock-                      Miller Creek and Coon Creek

Town Creek-                  Town Creek

Rob Maxwell Gauge Project: New School meets Old School

This is a project that Rob Maxwell needs our help with, he is trying to tie-in a lot of S.E. river gauges, here’s the catch,

Even the ones without internet gauges, the old school way. He is using a kick-a** Excel sheet that can be downloaded

to a Palm OS system or a Pocket PC. It is great for traveling on a road trip

The more info you can give, the more gas money we can save. So with that, here his is e-mail address and the info he needs.

Once you join his mailing list its all down hill from there and easy to do.

As we speak he trying to tie-in the Piney and Richland: Gauges. He’s smarter than I am…so let’s give him some data points.

The hardest thing to do? Take minute and write down the info before heading home, and then emailing him….man that’s tough ain’t it.

So here is the e-mail address and what he needs.

www.h2olevelcheck@boatingbeta.com

Please report your water levels:

DATE:  (i.e. Thursday MM/DD/YY)

TIME: please include CST/EST and AM/PM

RIVER:

RIVER SECTION:

LEVEL: Paddlers’ gage level not online/telephone level.  If the run doesn’t have

a staff or painted gage, please report how you know the level. For instance: 2”

Water flowing over the bridge at the put-in.

IMPRESSION: Was the run Low, Medium or High.

RISING/FALLING: Please report whether the level was rising or falling…if you can

tell.

Thanx – Rob Maxwell

Atlanta, GA