Big South Fork

The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River runs through remote areas of Northern Tennessee and Southern Kentucky.  The aerial view shows nothing but forest for miles around.  Its designation as a "National River and Recreation Area" means that primitive, dispersed tent camping is allowed anywhere.  Dispersed, primitive camping in a large National Forest really allows for a unique experience.  It also means you should take the time to try to prepare for anything that might come your way.  We've done this a few times now including on our three day, 40 mile trip down the Pine in Northern Michigan.

Black Bear

A local who picked us and our gear up at Blue Heron and dropped us off at Station Camp warned us to look out for both copperheads and timber rattlers.  We saw four bears on the drive down into the ravine on the way to the Station Camp put-in.  We also knew the rapids, even at a meager 150cfs at Leatherwood Ford would be challenging for us.  Big South Fork at 150cfs had both positives and negatives for us.  On the plus side it would be more safe since we are inexperienced with whitewater paddling.  It also seemed like a plus that we would have things largely to ourselves without the Spring kayaks to contend with.  The downside of the 150cfs flow level was that there were several areas where we had to get out and pull the canoe through shallow spots.  I don't particularly mind doing this if the scenery and fishing are good and they were spectacular.  We wound up only having to get out five or six times on our 17 mile trip.

Little Brown Jug

Breakfast on the Pop Can Stove

We didn't put-in on the first day until around 2:00 since the drive down from Southwest Ohio took about four hours.  This meant that we camped the first night at Big Island where a back country horseback trail crosses the river.  We caught several Smallmouth on the short trip from Station Camp to Big Island and looked forward to the next couple days.  The area around the campsite had some large beech, river birch, and conifers.  With the large trees, it was fairly open woods with native plants including christmas fern, maiden hair fern, little brown jug, black cohosh, and white baneberry surrounding our tent.  We made a small fire in an existing fire ring with dried out driftwood from the riverbank.  I made a mac-n-cheese dinner on a pop-can stove and we

Black Cohosh

swam in the clear green river a little after dinner.  We took the trouble to hang our food after seeing the bears on the way in.  Despite seeing the bears earlier, the night was peaceful and we woke up early due to a whippoorwill calling just before dawn.  Oatmeal and coffee on the stove and then off and paddling again.

Rock Bass

We were excited by the fishing the day before and spent a lot of time casting and floating.  The smallmouth bite had slowed some but we did put one rock bass in the boat.  We don't luck into many of these and their large red eyes are always interesting to see up close.

There is no cell service along the length of this river which means it's important to pay attention to the twists and turns and natural landmarks to track your progress.  It would be easy to linger too long casting and enjoying the scenery and then worry your family being late exiting the gorge.

One thing that makes this stretch of river so special is the scattered house size boulders that have calved off of sheer cliff walls all along its length.  I have no doubt that its deep enough in many spots to jump off of many of these but we avoided doing this given that it's so remote.  The number and size of boulders as well as the size of the rapids seem to increase as you move down river from Station Camp toward Blue Heron.  The smallmouth seemed to be in the current or immediately above or below riffles and often waiting in the eddy's behind boulders to ambush their prey or our baits.  We saw a grand total of two other people during the entire three day / two night trip.  As it turned out, one of the two had been a rafting guide on the New River in West Virginia.

More house sized boulders

Pulling up to our campsite the 2nd night.

We crossed into Kentucky in the late afternoon and paddled until the river turned to the East into the most remote section we would see.  We camped at the start of this stretch on a sand bank about 15' above the river.  I made some Zatarans on the stove and made another campfire.  This was a nicer place to swim with large boulders on the opposite side of the river from our beach.  I was a little concerned about bears after making Zatarans but the second night's peace was only interrupted by a barred owl and another whippoorwill calling at dawn.  In the morning a beaver swam downstream in between the beach and boulders while I made another round of oatmeal.

Adam was sitting next to the
tent by the fire and took this picture
of me swimming.

The third day was the best day of fishing.  We caught over 20 smallmouth, another rock bass, and two spotted bass.  Adam lost the biggest smallmouth I've ever seen after it jumped and dove back into a strong current.  We also noticed several redhorse suckers cruising the shoals.  If we come back I might read about how to catch one.  They weren't the least bit interested in what we were throwing.  We passed the rafting guide who was pulled off below a rapid and he snapped this picture.  We are very comfortable on this size rapid and were successful on several along this stretch of the Big South Fork at 150cfs.

The problem is that at the end of this segment, just before you get to Blue Heron is a rapid called Devil's Jump that is more difficult (at least for us) even at this level.  Somehow Adam managed to stay in the canoe and escape Devil's Jump after I fell out and swept through.  I was lucky to tip at the end of the rapid below the main drop.  

We had planned to portage around this particular rapid but a timber rattle snake on the portage trail convinced us otherwise.

Timber Rattler along the Devil's Jump Portage trail hiding under a Rhododendron.

The boulder field above Devil's Jump

Looking down into the narrowest part of Devil's Jump from a boulder above it.

The Big South Fork is the most scenic and remote river we've paddled so far.  It takes some planning to paddle this section and it's not for the feint of heart but it was very memorable.  We'll be back.  We'll be more likely to portage Devil's Jump though!

Put-in.......: Station Camp

Take-out.....: Blue Heron Mining Community

Miles........: 16.9
Miles to Date: 299.7
Map Used.....: National Park Service Brochure Map
Fish.........: Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Spotted Bass.