Carolina Ocoee — Local services in Ducktown

My son and I took a half-day whitewater rafting trip on the Middle Ocoee using Carolina Ocoee in August 2022. It was a great adventure well organized with a great guide and bus driver. Inexpensive concentrated fun for a few hours!

There are many guiding services for the Ocoee and they are all fairly even in pricing. We may have been fortunate that due to our starting location near Morganton, Carolina Ocoee’s base of operations was one of the closest to us so it meant less driving than other guide services located further downriver. We arrived early so had plenty of time to browse around the well stocked shop at Carolina Ocoee which has stuff like water shoes and t-shirts of course including a great adaptation of Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa.

The rafts were shortly loaded onto the top of a re-purposed school bus and we headed downriver to the takeoff point at Ocoee #2 dam. At this point we picked our guide, Bundy, and along with another couple and Bundy’s instruction, we practiced the commands we would hear from Bundy and how to paddle accordingly in the pool above the dam. We portaged around the dam and started the adventure which is pretty much non-stop rapid after rapid. The rafts are self bailing so even when water comes flooding in from a wave, it quickly clears. Whoever sits in the front gets the brunt of the water and the possibly the most thrill so my son and I swapped positions in the raft with the couple so we could each experience the bow. Bundy provided running commentary on the names of the rapids and the history of the river and several times navigated the raft to ‘surf’ a wave which is kind of crazy that the raft sort of holds steady on the wave while the river rushes on by. At about the mid-pint of the trip there is a quiet water section and it felt really good to hop out of the raft and just float along in the river buoyed up by our life vests. Due to the experience of our guides, the river condition and luck perhaps, none of the rafts in our group flipped or got wrapped on an obstacle. All the while we were rafting down the river, the bus driver advanced the bus down the road in order to capture pictures of the group as we floated past (and to pick us up eventually of course!). About four hours after we left the Carolina Ocoee base of operations we were back safe. The photos taken by the bus driver during the trip were played back on a video monitor and there was the option to buy the set of photos for a memory on a USB stick but it was almost as much as the cost of the...

My son (13) and I rafted the beautiful Nantahala river this last Saturday and had a great experience. Although it was my son's first time rafting (and my 2nd), because of this perfect experience, we decided to book the TN location with this same company the next day. So we then set out to raft the middle Ocoee river on Sunday. Les was our guide and he was awesome. I could tell at the drop-in that this river experience was going to def have more challenging rapids than the previous day. Despite feeling a bit intimidated (and always in mama bear mode) by this river, Les made us feel confident and comfortable with all the guidance and instruction he provided during the trip. You could tell he was one with the river! We sat up front and had an amazing time. I was thankful and surprised that we all stayed in the raft. You can feel safe rafting with this family owned company because all their guides are very experienced. My kiddo and I have now developed a love for rafting and decided that we MUST do this at least once a year from now on! I will only book with this company going forward and look forward to our next visit! Highly recommend you...

Four of us did a morning trip on the the Middle Ocoee with Les as our guide this past Thursday. This was my third time, my friend's second time, and my husband and sister-in-law's first time. But it was just as fun for me as it was for any of the others and it was a first for all of us using Carolina Ocoee. Les is a fantastic guide. He is super personable, made sure we had a safe run, and worked really hard to make sure we had a ton of fun. We would definitely use him again. Although we are partial to the guide we had, all of the guides actually were really nice and seemed skilled. It wasn't a group of rookies which I really appreciated. I've used other outfitters to raft the Ocoee and while none of them were bad, I would use Carolina Ocoee again as the price you pay for the quality you get is the best I've seen. Plus, it has more of a family feel. I recommend anyone who is like me reading reviews over-analyzing outfitters to just take my word for it and go with this one. You will have...