We hit our first complex “math problem” at Boxcar, a 12-foot waterfall with a technical, burly entry and another waterfall coming in on the left side of the boat exactly when it’s time to go vertical and drop into the pool below. It’s a formidable class IV+ drop in a kayak. In an R-2, it’s advanced calculus. You have to ride the bedrock seam between the two waterfalls while carrying enough momentum to boof the lip of the drop. You’ve got to get enough momentum through the launch so you carry an angle through the descent. If the nose of the boat hits the water vertically, you swim. Meanwhile, the second waterfall is pounding the left side of the boat, trying to pull the left-side paddler out of the raft. That paddler has to crank out two big forward strokes just before the lip of the falls while trying not to get sucked out of the raft.
It happens so fast that before you know it, you’re either swimming downstream or you’re sitting at the base of the falls inside a crazy-steep gorge celebrating before you realize it’s all over.
The North Fork of the French Broad is a classic Southern creek surrounded by mossy gorge walls and steep forested banks. It’s remote and beautiful and there are hundreds just like it throughout the Southern Appalachians. The obvious question that arises when you see a bulbous rubber boat dropping over a tight, vertical waterfall in the middle of a pristine creek gorge like this is: “Why would anyone do that?”
“I always tell people I like to R-2 because you can’t fit a cooler in a kayak,” Stallings says, smiling at the end of the North Fork run. “It’s just a different craft to get it done. It’s like driving a scenic highway in a Cadillac instead of a Porsche. It has its ups and downs.”
One aspect of R-2 that’s unique is the tandem nature of the boat. Two paddlers have to work together to get the raft down the river. One paddler has to take the lead and the other has to follow. It can be difficult, particularly when you’ve got two headstrong raft guides in the same raft, both of whom are typically used to being the leader on the water, but Stallings likes the relationships that evolve inside that tiny piece of rubber.
“There’s a social aspect to R-2 unlike any other kind of boating. You build a trust that’s completely unique,” he says, as we catch our breath after hauling the heavy rubber from the river to our cars parked on the side of Highway 215. Then he spins around and yells, “Gettin’ naked!” before changing back into his street clothes. “These poor unsuspecting mountain folk have seen more bare asses on this road than they’d care to admit.”
That’s Stallings, the perpetual guide, always thinking of others.
Are You R-2 Worthy?
The fickle rain-dependent nature of creeks makes it hard for commercial outfits to plan trips, and most paying customers don’t want to schlep a heavy rubber boat half a mile through rhododendron to the put in. But if you want to give it a go, you’ve got two options in the South and Mid-Atlantic.
Precision Rafting in Maryland offers “Extreme River Trips” on the Top Yough in R-2 boats. At low water, the Chattooga, on the Georgia/South Carolina border, turns into a technical creek with big drops.
