About Knoxville, Tennessee
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'Finger Lakes of the South' offer paddling options aplenty

You don't have to travel far from Knoxville to find a place to dip your paddle.

Lakes — or, more accurately, reservoirs — created by the Tennessee Valley Authority for the purpose of hydroelectric production and flood control surround the city.

Some are more canoe- and kayak-friendly than others. Norris Lake, for example, rates high on the scenery scale thanks to its clean water and largely undeveloped shoreline. But truth be told, none of the TVA reservoirs in the immediate vicinity of Knoxville are particularly good for paddling in the summer because of powerboat traffic.

To find really good lake paddling, head south on U.S. Highway 129 around the western end of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to a series of mountain impoundments on the Little Tennessee River. Known as the "Finger Lakes of the South" they include Chilhowee Lake, Calderwood Lake, Cheoah Lake and Fontana Lake.

Powerboat traffic on these lakes is light. Flanked by the Smokies on one side and national forest on the other, they afford a wilderness setting unrivaled anywhere in the Southeast. These waters are cold, narrow and deep — tailor made for a canoe, or perhaps a flatwater kayak.

Near the Finger Lakes is the Cheoah River, a major-league whitewater stream that will be available to the public this year. Located in the mountains of western North Carolina near Robbinsville, the Cheoah River has for 50 years been diverted through a pipe at Santeetlah Dam to produce hydroelectricity.

A new operating license issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission dictates that Tapoco, the company that operates the dam, must provide 16-18 days of whitewater a year on the Cheoah River for canoeing, kayaking, and commercial rafting. The agreement also calls for boat launching areas at both ends of the whitewater run.

The Cheoah has many Class IV and Class V rapids along its 9-mile whitewater section. It's an exciting run for serious paddlers — technical, like a traditional Eastern river, but at the same time powerful and pushy like many Western whitewater runs.

River recreation is big business in East Tennessee, with most of the commercial rafting industry concentrated southeast of Knoxville on dam-controlled rivers like the Ocoee, Hiwassee, and Nantahala.

A relative newcomer to the rafting industry is the Pigeon River. Located next to Interstate 40, the river skirts the east end of the Smokies as it flows from North Carolina into Tennessee, where it empties into Douglas Lake. For almost a century a North Carolina paper mill polluted the Pigeon. Today the 5-mile whitewater run through Tennessee draws more than 100,000 rafting customers a year, not to mention the canoeists and kayakers who paddle the Pigeon on their own.

Want more wilderness with your whitewater? In addition to dam-controlled rivers like the Ocoee, the mountains of East Tennessee offer a variety of free-flowing rivers, some of which are big enough to be runnable into the summer.

The French Broad offers Class II-III whitewater runs near Marshall, N.C. Paddlers take out at Hot Springs, N.C., a picturesque mountain town whose economy revolves around river recreation, and the Appalachian Trail.

The Nolichucky River is another free-flowing river with a sizable-enough watershed to make it runnable virtually year-round. The Nolichucky carves one of the deepest gorges east of the Rocky Mountains. Located near Johnson City in upper East Tennessee, the river is famous for its gorgeous scenery and steep rapids.

Outfitters on both the French Broad and Nolichucky rivers typically offer guided raft trips during the high-water season, and then let customers paddle their own rubber kayaks after the river drops during the summer and fall.