Chattooga: Descending into the Myth of Deliverance River

The Wilderness Upstream

The Wilderness Upstream BURRELL'S FORD BRIDGE TO THE ELLICOTT ROCK WILDERNESS This page intentionally left blank The theory and practiceof rivers leads wherenature has always led: toward the possibilityof transcendence, towardcontact with the sacrednessof the earth and with one's better self. CHRISTOPHER CAMUTO A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge AN MARSHALL'S wearing a black and green tie-dyed T-shirt with Henry David Thoreau's head printed on the front.He's drained a cup of coffee and is nursing a serious sugar buzz from eating three Krispy Kreme doughnuts, a confection he admits he's not encountered in Altoona, Pennsylvania. A native Canadian and environmental studies professor, lan's in Spartanburg as a visiting scholar for a symposium on bridging the gap between the sciences and the humanities , a noble cause in the settled suburbs of university and college teaching. He's promised us two daysasfacilitator,and I've promised him a hike before workshops begin. It's early on a Sunday and our better selves are not awake yet. We're driving over to the Chattooga to meet Kyle Burrell, Henry Burrell's son and an environmental scientist and fishing guide now living near Atlanta. The plan's for Kyle to take us for a hike upstream into the 9,012-acre Ellicott Rock Wilderness, a steep parcel of mountain forest and riverine corridor added to the National Wilderness System in 1975. Neither Ian nor I are fishermen and I'm afraid it shows by our I attire. First there's lan's T-shirt, which looks like something one might buy at a Grateful Dead benefit for Walden Pond. But there are other signs we are not sportsmen that will separate us from the fishermen and fisherwomen who arriveeach day at the Burrell's Ford Bridge and walk up- and downstream to angle the Chattooga's waters for trout. Scanning the cab of the truck reveals my Day-Glo yellow Nalgene water bottle and both our nylon day packs and no fishing rods or waders. Looking down in the floorboard shows we're definitely from the tribe of backpackers—deep lugged leather boots, nylon liners, and wool socks. Hiking in the backcountry makes sense to me, at least on days when floating down a river is out of the question, but nothing's ever really caught my imagination about fishing. I can see how those who love it came to love it—mastery of the technique and knowledgeof the landscape being two things that are also important inkayaking. But I've never been hooked. I have to admit that I've always liked fly-fishing gear catalogs and have even purchased several shirts designed for the activity, light, airy pastel models the color of a Belize lagoon with half sleeves that can be rolled up and buttoned in place. I can see by lan's day pack that he too likes gear. A newer model than mine, lan's pack has a web of elastic nylon to hold extra gear that hikers often need—field glasses, water bottles, a rain jacket. Ian is expectant and observant as he rides through this assault of new southern sensations. His experience with this part of the South is limited to one trip a few years before when he'd flown into Atlanta and had a friend drop him off at Springer Mountain to begin research for his book, Story Lines, a work of narrative scholarship that includes first-person accounts of hiking on the Appalachian Trail. "You're a character today," I tell him when I pick him up at the hotel. Ian laughs and says it's only fair, since he's treated so many friends to characterization in his book and subsequent essays. I've chosen the Chattooga hike because it's close by and I need to explore the upper reaches of the river. Watching the odometer click off the miles on the interstate, I explain to Ian that in twenty years 70 CHATTOOGA of visits I've never seen what is knownasthe Commissioner's Rock, a nineteenth-century artifact on the Chattooga of political and cultural significanceand a nice destination for a day hike. The obscure mark on a stone beside the Chattooga is the secondary evidence of a survey conducted in 1811 by Major AndrewEllicott , a Pennsylvanian like Ian, and a veteran of the famous MasonDixon survey in the late...