Displaying items by tag: ocoee river
Learn-to-Fish clinic and Music Jam at Oconaluftee visitor center
CHEROKEE — Great Smoky Mountains National Park will host a free youth fishing clinic and an Old Time Music Jam at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on Saturday, October 21, 2023. Both events are free and open to the public.
In collaboration with the International Game Fish Association, the park will hold the fishing clinic from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Try your hand casting a line for local trout and earn your Junior Ranger Angler badge. Learn about fish conservation and ethical angling practices at fun, interactive stations. All fishing equipment will be provided. The first 25 families will receive a free fishing pole to keep! A valid Tennessee or North Carolina fishing license is required for participants 16 or older.
Down the river toward a distant creek
Launching a raft for the rapids on the Ocoee River to raise awareness for TennGreen’s effort to acquire land along Clear Creek in Morgan County. Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press
A raft trip on the Ocoee helped save faraway Clear Creek
DUCKTOWN — We threw our backs into paddling as the raft dipped and crested.
We were on the Ocoee River in southeastern Tennessee, but Clear Creek, 118 miles away in Morgan County, was the reason for the occasion.
I joined the group, some of whom were staying in nearby cabins overnight, for rafting and a cookout.
It was part of a TennGreen push to buy and preserve 180 acres of land along Clear Creek. It will then sell 23 of those acres, which includes a house. It will donate the rest to the Obed Wild and Scenic River, an adjoining federal conservation area.
Cool water deluged us, rapid after rapid. In one case we spun with momentum. We high-fived with our paddles when we hit clear spots after a successful run.
That evening, we unwound with hot dogs, burgers both vegetarian and meat, potato salad and s’mores among other treats at the Cabins at Copperhill.
TennGreen Deputy director Christie Henderson said buying the Clear Creek land would allow for a connected wilderness area in which plants and animals could have a safe corridor. It also would preserve the view of the night sky from potential light from new houses.
Ocoee Whitewater Center destroyed in huge fire
U.S. Forest Service
WKRN: Building a total loss after overnight fire
Investigators are on the site of Polk County’s Ocoee Whitewater Center after it burned down in the early morning hours of April 26. No injuries were reported, and the building was closed to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Forest Service website. Several trails in the area were closed as authorities, including state arson investigators, probed the cause of the massive fire.
The center featured native stone and massive beams and overlooked the Class V rapids of the section of river used for whitewater events during the 1996 Olympics.