Voice of the Rivers 2008

May 17. Carrilea Potter. The big day is finally here.  After a chaotic morning filled with graduation, moving out of dorm rooms, last minute packing and a run to Wendy’s we pulled out of the college only 45 minutes late.  We had one 15 passenger van filled completely to the brim with the food and gear, and we all crammed into another van with the boats and paddling equipment.  Thanks to Drew Brennan who drove our gear van to our put in spot, we didn’t have to fit everything in one van, or I don’t think we would have fit. We drove to the base of Lake Jocassee dam and George Waite from Duke Power opened the gate for us so we could drive to the put in spot on Lake Keowee.

That night we learned from Merek that Lake Keowee means, “place of the mulberries”.  Hernando DeSoto back in 1540 explored the valley where the current lake is, a valley that  contained both the Keowee River and the Little River.  The first half of the afternoon we paddled with a strong head wind which made going a little slow, but 4 hours and 8 miles later we arrived at Mile Creek County Park to camp for the night.  Unfortunately when we pulled ashore, tired and very hungry, we realized we were on the opposite side of the peninsula from our camp site. One of the camp ground hosts, Carl,  drove Clyde to find our site.  The sunset, painted purple and orange, finally disappeared on the horizon as we started cooking dinner and setting up camp.  It was almost midnight when we crawled into our tents and called it a day.