After a tiring weekend on the Nolichucky I was excited for another change of scene, and Stephen Wright suggested we join him down in the ‘dirty south’ of Columbus, Georgia where the USA National Championships will be held in April. At first I wasn't super excited about a 6 hour drive down there but Stephen promised warmer weather and a fun selection of whitewater. So once again we loaded up Brooke’s #trucklifetour truck with all of our belongings and headed down there. Google maps gave us an optimistic 4.5 hour estimate to get there but Atlanta traffic adds the extra hour and a half. When we finally arrived on monday evening I was exhausted after driving a little over half of the way. It turned out the previous weekend had been a little more tiring than I expected. Stephen gave us a tour of the local area, he had organised a good spot for us to set up ‘gypsy camp’ in a local car park (parking lot) near the wave. He also new all the good places to eat and get the best coffee.
On first glance the ‘play park’ has but a trickle of water going down it, but thanks to regular releases from Georgia Power there would be water releasing every day. Different amounts of water were released at different times and there were different features depending on how many ‘generators’ were releasing. 2 generators gave a fun but flushy happy hole. 3 generators produced a really fun and powerful wave downstream of the hole which was SICK. The hole gave me a great opportunity to hole boat again and mainly served as a reminder that I have not been training all that much this winter and will really need to step it up if I hope to even do reasonably well at World Championships later this year.
The wave feature in Columbus, named simply ‘Good Wave’ is where they will be holding USA National Championships and I’m sure that will be an exciting event. The wave allows for all the wave tricks and even a few hole tricks. If you are heading to Columbus to compete or spectate in National Champs here are some of my top picks for places to eat/drink.
Coffee
I tried two different spots for coffee and light breakfast. (If you are looking for info on a more substantial breakfast place, ask somebody else because I do not know)
-Iron Bank Coffee: Good coffee, food was good, wifi. This is a coffee shop that used to be a bank, the old vaults have been turned into little booths complete with SUPER heavy doors (although the doors don’t actually close)
-Fountain City Coffee: Coffee was a little better here, bigger selection of sandwiches. Generally a lot more run of the mill coffee shop. I generally found their menu to be a little overwhelming/confusing although they did have a much wider selection of coffee which I preferred.
Overall Winner: Iron Bank Coffee. I hung out here a bunch as the water often wasn't releasing until the afternoon and generally preferred it as a place to hang out, drink coffee, do internet stuff etc.
Dinner/Lunch
Being a dirtbag I cooked a few lunches and dinners but I did eat out twice. Here is the low down.
-My Pie Pizza: Create your own Pizza, unlimited toppings under $10 for a meal. Great value for money, delicious and made fresh. I would eat here again for sure.
-Barberitos. Burritos/fajitas/tacos/quesadillas. Good bang for your buck in terms of money spent vs full stomach. Again full belly for under $10.
After around a week in Columbus #trucklifetour is on the road again this time to Cheoh river, North Carolina. Another new river for me and for Brooke too. #trucklifetour be sure to keep up on my Instagram @seth_ashworth
Some Great photos by Brooke Hess in this article!
Get set for your next adventure:
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