French Broad River in Tennessee

Trip Overview

We were hoping to duplicate the paddle described from 29 April 2012 report. However, when we arrived, the gate was locked with a sign that said "Authorized Personnel Only." There was a place we could put our kayaks and canoes in the water close by, however (easy to spot as others were also using this place). So we thought we would still head off in the direction of Cruz landing, but we forgot our map, and no one we asked seemed to know where it was. All that said, we did have a very nice paddle.

As we are not familiar with the area, I will say that as you face the river from the edge of the river, we paddled to our left, toward the golf course. If you like watching birds, this is a great place. We saw lots of kingfishers, osprey, hawk, and many others. We even saw one hawk fly across the river with a snake and then stop in a tree to devour its meal.

The paddle was constant, but not difficult until we were ready to go around the end of the island (we went to the left first) where people were golfing. It took a bit of work to get around the bend, but it's do-able, even for beginners, if you don't get too close to the edge of the island. Our reward came on the other side of the golf course's island when we happened upon a small little island with four heron nests, and herons sitting in each one.

The paddle back to our beginning was a very lazy one, letting the river do most of the work. All in all, a very nice 2 and 1/2 hour paddle. The only negative thing I can say is that it would have been nice to have GPS coordinates for the take-out landing...

Accommodations:

There is a porto-john at the site.

Fees:

None for this paddle.

Directions:

I-40 East to Midway Road, turn right and follow signs to River Islands Golf Course. When you get to Kodak RD. (Golf Course) turn right. First left is Kelly Lane. Follow about 1 1/2 miles to you get to river.

Resources:

We used the directions from this website to take us to the place to put our kayaks & canoes in the river.