Feature article
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Gentle Cherokee can turn furious
By Doug Janz
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There is a fleeting moment we all have experienced, at some point, when things turn on us. It happens faster than we can react, catching us off-guard.
Life is smooth, you’re on easy street, you’re in command, and then BOOM — you’re on your butt.
When stuff like this happens out there, in the woods or on the water or in the mountains, it can come from a lot of sources: wild animals, human error, equipment failure, weather, other people unexpectedly entering the situation. And then you just hope it’s nothing serious.
Cherokee Lake looked tame and harmless to me, not long ago, on a hot and calm afternoon during a stretch of stormy days. At times the water was almost dead calm as I paddled with a friend on a two-seater kayak.
Our fleeting moment came as we left the protection of a mesmerizing cove and headed toward broader waters. A rogue storm swirled in the distance, too small to look menacing but enough to convince us to turn around and paddle away from it.
Lake paddling, by and large, is not challenging. In these parts not much can go wrong if you use common sense and don't panic. But there’s always a chance. ...
On this day we saw the water churn up suddenly, rock us around, and then — BAM! We were sideways and tossed out, floating in stormy waters with the boat upside down and the closest shore a hard fight against the wind and current.
Things worked out fine, since we were never in much danger. The lightning had not moved in on us yet, the shore was always in sight, we were well-buoyed with pfd’s, and we kept our heads. But it was a humbling experience — to be cruising quietly and in control with the lake practically all to ourselves, having bragged about how stable our boat was, only to find ourselves sloshed around five minutes later in deep water, unable to stabilize the kayak long enough to climb back on.
The cruise started out harmlessly. We pitted at a convenience store for some local advice on where to put in a kayak as opposed to the 90 percent of boaters who are motorized.
A girl behind the counter gave me an uneducated guess that we should hit the water below a nearby bridge. She turned out to be right. We found it with no trouble and, toting the boat, pardoned our way past a family who were fishing along the rocks. Takeoff was effortless. No sign of trouble.
Cherokee Lake is like most other lakes in our region — beautiful, surrounded by heavy foliage, not terribly wide, and a combination of the remote and the developed. It is located west of Rogersville heading toward Bean Station, which I like to call “the Bean Station.”
The lake is shallow and dam-controlled, and in the offseason many of the areas we paddled are completely dry. The lake becomes a brown and red dirt basin.
Signs of this transformation were obvious as we dipped the paddles and eased across the water. Fully developed trees within 50 feet of shore were mostly underwater, their green leaves and upper branches right at face level for us.
We stopped at an inviting point on the far shore, investigated to find blackberries, and eventually made our way around the corner into a quiet cove that was more like a swamp tour. Various forms of vegetation clogged the way to the back of the inlet; it was too captivating to stay away, and we paddled gently and cautiously under tree limbs, around flotillas of tall grass and into the depths of the sanctuary.
This was a new paddling environment, going beyond the basic rocks-and-trees shoreline that makes up 95 percent of our local lakes. It was a discovery that turned the trip into something exciting, only in a very calm way.
As soon as we left the cove, though, we saw some weather in the distance; it was a swirling mist that appeared to be coming down off the ridge and surprising everything from behind, wrapping itself around a solitary, very expensive, lakefront home.
The storm was more interesting than ominous, but to avoid any weather problems, we changed directions and began to churn back toward the vehicle. Within a minute or two the storm had kicked up. Even though we had the wind to our backs, we struggled to control the direction of the kayak. Then came a mighty blast of wind that turned us sideways to the waves.
There was time enough to say “Oh no, we're gonna tip over!” and then we were flopping in the choppy water, trying to get a bearing on everything.
It took only a few seconds to get past the momentary fear that accompanies something sudden like this, and only a few more moments to gather the paddles, grab onto the boat, and size up the situation. Paddling against the storm was impossible, even though shore was three times closer in that direction than in the other, but keeping the boat steady and trying to pull ourselves up onto it was equally impossible.
Absolutely no one was in sight, which meant no chance of assistance, but at least nobody had seen us flop into the lake. The embarrassment factor immediately disappeared.
Our obvious next steps were to flip the boat upright, grab the paddles — each of us gripping an end of the kayak — and start swimming and pulling the craft toward the far shore of a large island, with the storm at our backs.
The weather did not abate for 20 more minutes as we made the tedious, steady kick. It was awkward. The waves were pumped up and the water was active, slapping us in the face and pushing us around.
After a seemingly endless push, we made shore and found a half-suitable place in the shallow water to plant our feet on steep, muddy earth and catch our breath. We looked into each other’s eyes briefly, measuring our collective condition, and after a minute or two we felt comfortable with the task at hand. Then we edged around the next point, climbed back onto the Titanic and steamed ahead.
Our return strokes were a combination of tentative and aggressive as we tried to catch the wind and ride the waves, all the while staying within striking distance of the shore. As we left the island behind, the storm currents flowed from both sides of it and met in mid-lake, blowing up our back. We worked hard to keep ourselves aligned with this hillbilly jetstream, thereby avoiding the unpleasant sideways position.
We had paddled in a worse storm on Holston Lake, but it hadn’t been nearly as tricky as this one. We felt a hint of uneasiness on the last dash across open water, and I was relieved to make the takeout spot, even though the trouble we’d faced had been more inconvenience than true danger.
Lightning began to flash as we departed. We had solid ground and were safely ensconced in our vehicle. It had been several hours since we’d entered the water, yet it felt like it could have been 20 minutes. There was a surreal quality to our experience now, almost as if it hadn’t really happened.
After all, this boat couldn’t capsize. It was way too stable for that, especially on the benign waters of Cherokee Lake.
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Adventure writer Doug Janz writes about outdoors experiences in the Tri-Cities and beyond. E-mail him at DouglasJanz@aol.com.
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