Once a year I lead a trip with my paddling club for all the new boater chicks and we've coined it Babes on the Waves! We do it on a reasonably easy whitewater river and the last three years we've had it on the Hiawassee River which is class I-II. We do let a few fellows go because we can't discriminate so this year there were 10 gals and only 3 guys..... A total success!!

The story here is that 3 years ago on the first Hiawassee trip I of course set up my hammock rig. But most of them had never seen such a thing, they had heard me talk about it but finally got to see what I was so excited about. That night it rained and stormed like crazy and I was the only one who wasn't dripping with water and mud splatter the next morning. I had even set my alki stove the night before under my tarp so I could make coffee without getting out of my sleeping bag and was sipping away as folks were wringing out their wet belongings from their tents. A couple of them even had to drag their tents over to the water hose and spray the mud off before putting them in their cars. Yuck!

Well to make a long story short all 9 of them were there again this year but this time they were in hammocks!! Only two were in tents but they were new and didn't know, but they have already started asking questions. Especially after it rained again as it always does this time of year in TN after a sweltering 85 degree day with 100% humidity. And they saw how we were all dry after they had gotten pretty darn wet.

We stayed at Gee Creek Campground in Delano,TN and it can accommodate many hammocks.There was a program in the park about snakes and we got to hold them and learn about them too. We ate big as always and had a nice fire with Smores to end the evening.

Here are a few pics.