Fontana Lake – Suffering The Benz

Back in the kayak: Fontana Lake

I screwed up my back a few months ago and have been getting in the kayak sparingly. This week, I finally felt good enough to jump in the boat again. It helped that my buddy Jim had the week off and wanted to head up the Fontana Lake in the Smokey Mountains to paddle. It’s one of my favorite spots and I was thrilled to go back.

We drove up on Monday in a rainstorm and things weren’t looking good, but after we arrived at Fontana the weather eased and we decided to put in at Fontana Village Marina. From there, we headed up Eagle Creek amid dramatic skies and a bunch of kids in canoes. It was a nice, though tiring, paddle. All told, we went about 9 miles.

After a hard rain Tuesday night, we awoke to cloudy skies and headed up to Cable Cove and put in there. I love this put in. It’s remote, and it puts you in the heart of Fontana. We were out for a few hours and covered about five miles. I saw one canoe and a couple power boats the entire time. And the Smokey Mountains made it very clear how they got their name. The clouds and mist rising up out of the trees were amazing.

Paddling Calderwood Lake in a fog …

I normally paddle solo, but when Jim, who recently was ordained Bishop of Bivalves at the Oyster Sunday celebration, said he was up for a kayaking trip, I jumped at the chance for some company.

We intended to paddle Fontana Lake, but after braving The Dragon for the second time in as many weeks, I was happy to divert to Calderwood, which Jim recommended. It’s a little closer than Fontana, just off 129 on the way to Robbinsville.

In the end, I liked Calderwood better than Fontana. It lacks the scale and long views that Fontana boasts, but the intimacy of Calderwood is very alluring. The banks are almost vertical as it snakes through the mountains, and when we set off at about 11 yesterday morning, a thin layer of fog clung to the water, giving the first part of our paddle a surreal feel.

First impression of Calderwood is that it’s freakin’ cold. Fontana didn’t strike me as being much colder the Loudon (though I’m sure it was), but Calderwood felt icy. Just stepping into it to launch the kayak convinced me I didn’t want to end up in the water. Water temperatures were about 50 degrees, which probably accounts for the veil of fog that didn’t burn off until about noon.

The lake is about 8 miles long, lying between Cheoah and Chilhowee lakes and straddling the North Carolina-Tennessee line. We launched from a small camping area that Alcoa owns and operates near the Cheoah dam, and before the day was over, we logged about 14 miles paddling, much of it exploring small branches and waterfalls.

We were trying to reach the dam at Chilhowee, but we came up short, knowing we were pretty close to our limit for the day. The paddle back was a bit rough, but cool breezes blowing down out of the mountains and a heron who played hopscotch with me along the shoreline made it more than tolerable.