Wahoo's Adventures Nolichucky — Local services in Erwin

I'll begin by saying that this was an overall fun experience. My family had a good time and we were able to make some awesome memories. That being said, there were things that detracted from the overall experience. Our experience started a bit awkward as we arrived early and had some confusion as to whether or not we needed to. Spotting an employee, (Tree-bar), coming out of the building, I asked him if we needed to be there early; he looked at us with an odd expression, (fear maybe), and then without a word, quickly ducked back into the building. We thought that maybe he went to get us an answer, but when he failed to return in a timely manner, we just chalked it up to social anxiety. We decided to just quietly wait and once the other customers arrived, employees capable of speech appeared and before long we were all being fitted with vests and helmets. Ethan's help in fitting our vests was great, even Tree-bar reappeared to assist in helmet distribution. Ethan did make us a little nervous when he looked at my youngest son along with another couple's twin six year-old girls, (quietly being passed off as eight years-old by their parents), and repeatedly said in a worried tone, "These are really small human beings going on class four rapids". My son, while actually 8 years old, is growth challenged, and is often mistaken for a much younger child, so the wife and I had come prepared with his ID to prove his age and were very surprised that even with the obvious concern exhibited by a staff member as to his size, no challenge had been made to verify his age. After fittings we piled into vans to head for the river. Our van had working A/C and cold wet seats that actually felt good considering the heat. Ethan was our driver and was friendly enough and as he drove with common sense which I really appreciated. When we arrived at the river, we were then subjected to Patrick "Patty Cakes" and his instructional speech/comedy routine/pep rally, it was pretty bad, but somehow we got through it. The thing that was so bad for me was that whenever he joked about the poor life choices he's made, which he did a lot of, you could see the real sadness and regret in his eyes. Luckily most younger people who haven't yet bothered to stare at the cold harsh reality of getting older, couldn't comprehend this. That being said, his instructions were clear and easily understood and he made sure that we knew his team was awesome and experienced which has to be helpful in giving people confidence in their abilities. Our raft guide was Burt or Bert, not sure which is correct here, he was obviously very experienced and my family enjoyed having him as our guide. He had an easy going nature and was informative when it came to the names and classes of the rapids we approached. I didn't like that he talked down about the competing rafting companies on the river around us. I thought it was also a immature and unprofessional when Burt/Bert and Patty Cakes openly celebrated when several of their competitors rafts ended up in bad situations despite the potentially life-threatening nature of them. Overall this is a group of experienced guides who obviously enjoy what they do, I just feel that more maturity and professionalism would have rounded out the entire experience for me and my family. This rouge unprofessionalism could be just the nature of the rafting industry though, I really haven't had another experience to...

About a week ago we took a trip down the Nolichucky with the crew at Wahoo’s. This is an extraordinary group of whitewater rafting experts, a real class act. When I was planning the trip, Slayton (the owner) was absolutely outstanding as he gave me a lot of information about his operation, the river, and Slayton helped us plan an awesome trip. I got lost driving up from Burnsville, and he waited for us to get there. When we arrived, his team quickly and professionally got us ready in quick order and onto the van.

We have rafted with many different guide outfits, so we have a good sample to compare from. The team at Wahoo’s worked so well with each other at every point during the trip. Our lead guide in the van gave a very engaging and effective safety brief, he got us rafters involved with questions and past experiences. When we arrived at the put in site, our raft guide “Derrick” worked really well with my nephew who was a first-time rafter and my son and I as we launched the raft.

While on the river, Derrick was a true professional as he set the stage of what to expect. His tone was measured while giving instructions on what to do while in the raft, and he politely redirected conversations as we approached rapids and provided critical information to prepare us for what was coming next. I had some really memorable discussions with Derrick, talking about his experiences rafting and learning from his extensive knowledge of nature and the river environment. What an adventure! His expertise borders on legendary – you should always ask for Derrick, one of the best rafting guides I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

The Nolichucky - I’ve rafted down six rivers in the US (some multiple times) and three in foreign countries. I’m not a rafting expert, but I’ve been on enough rivers to have an experienced opinion. The Nolichucky is a very fun river, how much fun will depend on water flow. When we went it was running at about 1,500 CFS, so we had some good water and many formidable rapids. This was a challenging river with dangerous rocks, and it gets narrow at times with steep walls along the gorge. The New River in WV was more challenging, but in my opinion the Nolichucky is by far the best river in North Carolina for whitewater rafting.

I highly recommend Wahoo's Adventures Nolichucky Outpost, the facilities were excellent, everyone was friendly, they helped so much and made everyone feel like valued customers. I know that sounds cheesy, but I got the impression that they cared that we picked Wahoo’s to spend our money on - we...

So this is our third time out with Wahoo's. Again, our expectations were exceeded! We took out our seven-year-old son on the three hour Nolihucky adventure. We had been turned down for the big river from all the other companies, but Wahoo's's let him go on the Watuga when he was three and welcomed him back again today.

Slim shady remember their name when it came up on the speed dial and took care of our reservations in a speedy fashion, and immediately sent us confirmation with directions.

Patrick did an awesome job of getting us prepared with instructions, history, with a tongue in cheek spiel.

Nathan was our guide and did an excellent job... He made sure that our grandson had a great time, letting him move into the different places on the raft to get different experiences. He put them in the front when we turned around to go surfing and Elijah had a blast, got totally soaked the whole time .

To top off the entire situation, we had left my wife's inhaler in Nathan's dry bag. We did not realize it until we were back on Beech Mountain. When we called, Christine jumped right on it, Patrick went and met with Nathan to recover the inhaler and drove the hour drive to Beech Mountain to give it to us.

These guys have earned our business for life, we will never use another company for our outdoor adventures in the mountains......