Kayak/Canoeing on the Toccoa
Sep 21st, 2009 by Admin 1
A few weeks ago we paddled down about 23 miles of the Toccoa River in North Georgia. It was a little challenging to navigate the low levels. 
When we went I think the levels were around the 230-280 cfs range so there was plenty of bottom scrubbing going on in certain areas but we still managed to have fun. This area of the Toccoa is located in Due County just outside of Blue Ridge. We arrived up there mid-day on Friday to try to secure a decent spot to camp somewhere between where we decided to put in at Deep Hole and take out and settled on Toccoa Valley Campground along Aska Rd. It was a little expensive and the individual sites had little privacy but it was more about the paddling than camping this time. We also checked out Sandy Bottoms which is a small 4 site campground along the river but all of the spots were taken. The next time we go we will likely camp along the river on one of the spots we found. Some of the best parts of the river were the shoals just past the suspension bridge for the Benton MacKaye Trail 
where we stopped for lunch, just before and then again about a mile after the Shallowford Bridge. We knew we were in Deliverance country when a local told us about an old couple that sits along the bank taking pop shots w/ a BB gun at anyone who stops and hangs out on the rocks! Yeah, really! Kind of ironic considering this is the area where both ourselves and our friends both flipped our boats and had to stop to recover some of the jettisoned items including coolers, tackle boxes and one extremely important flip flop. 
