Rock Slides of the Ocoee River Gorge

Highway 64, the river road, follows the Ocoee river through the gorge and cuts through the Cherokee National Forest in Polk county in south east Tennessee. The road has been in use for well over a hundred years for it is the best way through the rugged mountains for many miles around. In November of 2009 a rock slide closed the road and it's not expected to reopen until February. You can view this most recent rock slide on YouTube under Ocoee rock slide. I've seen some rock slides in my twelve years on the Ocoee. Most of the time the slides are minor just a few rocks in the road but every once in a while a large movement occurs.

East of Hwy 411 the river road is a ghost road that's where the detour sends people 120 miles out of their way to get around the slide. All the businesses past this point are suffering. I met a FedEx truck on one of the forest service roads that bypass the slide area. The driver asked if he could get through that way. I said yeah but it'll be one helluva ride. I heard later that no commercial vehicles were allowed on the forest service roads without a permit and non were being issued. I must agree it is a rugged mountain road in the true sense of the word. Regular drivers could take the forest service roads but only the locals really know these back mountain roads. At least the slide didn't happen during the summer when rafting is in season, that would have been truly devastating to the local economy.

About five or six years ago during a three year period of rain when hurricane Ivan blew through a slide occurred at the same place changing Grumpy's-that's the entrance rapid on the Ocoee. This slide took about three days to clear. The Ivan rain event moved a lot of rocks in the river changing several of the rapids. During this same period of rain a large slide happened on Hwy 64 just outside of the gorge next to Parksville lake. This slide happened in the winter also and kept the highway closed for two weeks. Fortunately this slide was west of highway 30 so the detour was only about 20 miles out of the way.

There was a rock slide that happened during the rafting season. I was on the river when a earthy, piny smell hit me. Everyone knew something was up but no one knew what. About two miles more down stream we rounded the bend. A rock slide had taken out the flume line. The flume is a wooden trough that feeds water to the power house. The flume starts out level with the river at the put in then drops slightly while the river drops a lot. Where the flume was busted it was about a hundred and fifty feet above the river. Because of all the rain the flume and the river were running. All the water from the flume was flowing down the cliff side into the river. We had double water all season long while TVA repaired the flume.