For all the paddling addicts out there starting to fret about where to paddle come November if there is no rain, the Nantahala will be back on line after November 12th. Shut down will occur on October 29th for maintenance. Once back on line, Duke is not required to run scheduled releases for whitewater recreation until March, but power generation means downstream flow, so check the website for releases.
And for future planning here are the scheduled 2013 release dates for the Cascades/Upper Nantahala:
April 27 – 10 am to 4 pm, 250 cfs
April 28 – 10 am to 4 pm, 350 cfs
June 22 – 4 pm to 7 pm, 250 cfs
July 3 – 4 pm to 7 pm, 250 cfs
July 17 – 4 pm to 7 pm, 250 cfs
September 01 – 4 pm to 7 pm, 250 cfs
September 28 – 10 am to 5 pm, 300 cfs
September 29 – 10 am to 5 pm, 425 cfs then 250 cfs
The Duke rec schedule says it is running Monday. Where did you find this updated information? I sure don’t want to camp up there overnight and freeze my tail off just to find no water! :-0 Any info you can offer would be very much appreciated.
Mary- this is directly from Duke Energy. I was in a meeting with them. Now could they tweak things at the last minute? possibly. I will double check tomorrow and let you know.
Do y’all have the West Fork Tuck release dates for next year? I haven’t seen those posted anywhere yet.
The dates and release levels are….wrong. I hate that Google puts this page up top in the results when you search for Upper Nantahala releases.
The blog post was put up in 2012. And since then Duke switched the Aug. 31 to Sept 01. And the cfs was officially off by 100 cfs (said 350 instead of 250). But then the cfs has been more than 100+ above what Duke was trying for as it is all new to them and it has rained.
Thank you for the heads up about the 2012 blog and we have gone back and corrected the Aug 31 date to Sept 01.