Warren Creek

Warren has been mentioned in the American Whitewater Cole City Creek (GA) description for years. It starts in Alabama and ends up in Georgia. It has a tiny watershed so I’d always dismissed it. Your eyebrows might arch a bit when you looked at the topos. "Punchbowl Gulf, eh?" Hmmm. In the fall of 2010 the nice hiking days were upon us so I checked it out. As soon as you walk up to the obvious opening drop at the power lines its 'whoa baby, that’s a big one.' We chopped it out a week after our hike. There were a ton of logs removed.

The opening drop is indeed a ~40 ft. punchbowl vertical into a big deep pool. The entrance is somewhat twisty. The rest of the run is tight IV+ with a one to three V’s. Unfortunately a lot of clear cutting is going on just upstream of the Cole City Confluence. There are now a big number of trees to get around there. You then paddle out on a hopefully flooded Cole City Creek from Georgia into Tennessee.

There are two access options at the top. You can either put on from the road and deal with about half a dozen logs, or ask permission to put on off AL 259 on Tom Vann’s land under the power lines. Either way, the walk around the waterfall, should you choose not to fire it up, is on river left. You will want to make the mover left far enough upstream of the falls, so be on your toes. Level can be judged at the outflow of the plunge pool from above. If there is just a bit of water covering the rocks at the outflow, it should be at a runnable but low level. More water will quickly get spicy.