Tennessee Turmoil

Journeying Over 400 Miles with the Tennessee River 600

Text by Kevin Shaw

Photography by Andrea Wilson

I have a sweet spot in my heart for the South. Maybe I’m a little biased, seeing that I married a girl from Birmingham, Alabama, but the steep, rolling hills draped in thick green forests and dense grasses, the glassy veins of smoothly lolling rivers, and the harmonic din of nature reverberating in the air just hits home. Too many times have I’ve wandered down its hilly streets and across its waters dreaming up the right way to quit my job and move back east. Sure, the crooners sang about New York and the Beach Boys claimed California had the prettiest girls, but there’s a reason why there are more songs about the South than any other locale.

So when the idea to join the annual Tennessee River 600 group came up, I was all ears. The Tennessee River 600 is an interesting event. Unlike some other group rides that descend upon any one particular location like a swarm and shred up the regional waterhole for a weekend, the 600 is a cross-state adventure ride, allowing its participants to freely explore, hot rod, or just gently cruise the eight dams and locks, the hundreds of rock-faced caves, and countless fingers during the week-long event. Starting in 1997 as a pleasure ride for PWC enthusiasts, it has evolved into an annual event where its participants raise money benefiting four children's hospitals and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

As per the event’s website (TennesseeRiver600.com):

“Funds raised from participants and sponsors are divided equally among TC Thompson Children's Hospital, Chattanooga, Tennessee; The Children's Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama; LeBonheur Children's Medical Center, Memphis, Tennessee; and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. In 2003, the Tennessee River 600 was recognized by the Tennessee State House of Representatives, honoring and commending the participants and supporters for their commitment to a worthy cause. In 2004, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, The Honorable Susan Whitaker, served as Grand Marshal. Ms. Whitaker spoke at the Welcome Dinner and presented a personal letter of recognition and appreciation from Tennessee's Governor Phil Bredesen to Event Director, Dennis Beckley for his many years of leadership to the Tennessee River 600.”

The entirety of the Tennessee River 600 would navigate through eight TVA dams from Knoxville, Tennessee, down into Decatur, Alabama, and back north into Tennessee, ending finally at Paris Landing, just shy of the Kentucky border. In its twelve year, the 600 provides a traveling support crew, meeting riders at the overnight stops. Dennis Beckley, the aforementioned Event Director, provided me and every participant a laminated page with a thorough breakdown of each possible fuel stop and landing along the way. Earlier, it was decided that I and the familiar crew from Kawasaki wouldn’t be able to traverse the complete course, so an abreviated course was planned out days earlier.

We would spend Saturday and Sunday with the group, but break away early Monday morning, foregoing some dry land sightseeing, and carry on to Alabama. Accompanied by Kawasaki’s PR team of Jon Rall, Support Technician John Baynes, and event assistants Tracy Bolle and Laurie Jacobsma, we were greeted in Knoxville by sweltering temperatures and suffocating humidity. I was beginning to rethink my whole “pack it up and move east” idea. In fact, weather reports for the whole week looked equally as bleak. High temperatures and humidity interlaced with some on-again-off-again thunderstorms. Gone were my riding pants and neoprene jacket, I mused while I purchased extra sun block. This would be a shorts and t-shirt trip.

While traveling 400 miles down the Tennessee River was a lot of fun, the real treat came from hanging with Laurie and Tracy. Tracy, a barrel-chested, ex-dealership owner wielded an infectious laugh and a permanent smile. Tracy also had the look of a guy who you dared not challenge on anything because he would take your bet and your money. Laurie’s sweet and calm demeanor was a sort of anti-Tracy, providing us a degree of harmonious balance. Laurie once served as one of the key testing and development riders for Polaris watercraft for several years before the company closed its PWC division. Obviously, she was no novice to what we were doing this weekend.

The Tennessee River 600 crew knows how to ride with an entourage. The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Tennessee Valley Authority, Tennessee State Parks, Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers have all helped in shadowing the procession on their previous journeys. Beckley would shrug when asked about this year’s attendance, “As you can imagine with the gas prices being what they are that we’re going to have less people here.” Previous years reached over 70 PWC in the water. This year would top at 39. The field would be comprised mainly of GTX and RXT Sea-Doos, FX Yamahas, and a sprinkling of Hondas. There were a handful of performance craft including a pair of RXT-Xs, a single SHO Cruiser, and a single Ultra 250X.

We, on the other hand, brandished two STX-15Fs and a pair of naturally aspirated Ultra LXs. This would be the longest time I’d had with the brand’s ‘15F and was easily the biggest surprise of the trip. Even before the parade began Sunday morning, I was able to rack up some extra miles Saturday afternoon, playing around the lush riverside scenery and simply soaking in the sights. It’s hard to imagine that the same craft that claimed last year’s World Finals championship was also the lowest rung of the Kawasaki ladder, until the stripped-down STX was unveiled for 2009. The STX-15F is light, agile, nimble and playful. While overshadowed by its larger siblings in the storage and stability departments, the 15F is definitely the liveliest of the company’s runabouts.

Sunday would be our longest day, totaling upward to 185 miles of river. Leaving in a group, the lead foots were quickly revealed, their trailing roosts the only evidence of their lead. That lone red Ultra 250X was helmed by LouAnn Weidner from Vandalia, Michigan. This year marked her 10th year participating in the event. LouAnn made no effort to conceal her love of performance, she aboard her 250-horsepower Kawasaki reminding me of the little old lady from Pasadena’s shiny red, super stock Dodge hidden way back in her rickety old garage. She would hang back for most of the day as she was hosting a friend riding LouAnn’s trick STX-R.

The group would re-gather twice that day. Once to refuel at Fort Loudoun and later at Watts Bar, both in Tennessee. The fuel dock and launch at Fort Loudoun was easily one of the most impressive I had seen throughout my years traveling the southern waterways. Not for any sort of innovation or modern appliance employed there, but for having the single cleanest and hospitable restrooms imaginable at a dock. Adjacent to the harbor sat the Fort Loudoun Lock, a dam that drops west-bound travelers over 100 feet. Recollecting our masses, I was intrigued by the diversity of the watercraft present. One in particular, belonging to Larry Boozer of Rock Hill, South Carolina, featured a custom-made rear-mounted seat back similar to the sissy bars on Peter Fonda’s chopper motorcycle along with several other modifications, including a Riva Stage 1 kit.

The stretch between Fort Loudoun and Watts Bar allowed me time to befriend Hallie Humphreys and her friend Stuart Johnson, a struggling college student with an affinity for classic Sea-Doos. While Hallie struggled on a bucking teal-and-white two-seater, Stuart carried about like an ADHD-inflicted five year old unleashed from its parent’s tether after inhaling half a box of Ding Dongs. His yellow XP rocketed up and down the river, leaping over wakes and weaving through traffic, paying little attention to the plummeting needle of his gas gauge. Crossing the longest non-stop stretch of the ride between Kingston and Watts Bar, some 72 miles, was a treacherous one. With the marina in sight, each of us was slowly running on empty. Well, all but Stuart, who sputtered out of fuel 200 yards back. With a tow rope in hand, I turned around and lassoed him like a stray calf. Back at the dock, bruised and sore, Hallie (not wanting to insult her well-intended pal) pleaded that I let her ride with me on the cushier STX-15F than dare the roughening river on the aged Sea-Doo.

When we left Knoxville, the water was glassy smooth. But as the river widened and time carried on, the waters turned dark and agitated. By Watts Bar we were spent, wanting to get out of the blaring sun and wash the remains of black gnats that had smashed into us like the grilles of tractor trailers. Long miles with only the sound of a motor and the arrhythmic rapping of water smacking against the watercraft’s hull is enough to drive one insane. When left alone to my own devices, I find myself singing to nobody. By two o’clock in the afternoon, tired, sweaty and covered in layers of dried sunscreen, I was deliriously screaming at the top of my lungs an alley cat-rendition of “If you like Pina Coladas,” snickering each time I replaced “coladas” with “colonics.” I blame it on dehydration…

There’s a reason why the Tennessee River 600 is so successful. Actually, there are several, including the altruistic funds that the event supplies to needy institutions, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the scenery. With what little I surveyed of the state, much of it is comprised of undulating, richly green hilled forests. The river itself looks like it defiantly carved a swathe through pure limestone, which, in reality, it did over millions of years. Many times as we traveled down river we were suddenly overshadowed by bare cliffs riddled with stray roots and low, overhanging grasses. Occasionally, the bare limestone and granite rock faces would give way to iron-rich packed soil banks topped with vibrant green foliage that reminded me of Disney’s “Song of the South.” Passing another darkened riverfront cave, I imagined Brier Bear snoozing loudly within.

Chattanooga provided another surprise, as the city is a hub of ultra-modern architecture and buzzing with city life. Outside Magazine awarded Chattanooga as the second best place to live in America recently, and I’m beginning to understand why. The entire waterfront has been redesigned with free docking and free river tours supplied by the city’s aquarium. There we stayed overnight, resting before having to set out on the second leg of our expedition. As the rest of the Tennessee River 600 crowd remained in Chattanooga, we journeyed on, wanting to soak in the scenery. From the neo-southern city, the river narrowed providing us possibly the glassiest water I had ever seen. The water was so still that at 50 mph, I was able to lean over the handlebars and cloud gaze in the river’s reflection.

Monday’s travels would land us in northern Alabama. We would pass Hale’s Bar, the once site of a hydroelectric dam that eventually was outdated by the Nickajack Lock. Each passing lock lowered us lower and lower in altitude, something that I was trying to keep track of. I estimated that by the end of our trip, the combined locks dropped us over 240 feet. Large red and green channel marker buoys marked our path through the river as we were warned of watermill foil weeds that were as dangerous as sucking up a rope and nearly as tough.

The south is interesting in that people have been living there for well over two hundred years. Birmingham, Alabama, for example, is one of the few places in the world where all three components to make steel (iron ore, limestone, and coal) are found. Yet, once the industry boom slowed to a halt, the city – like to so many other southern cities – needed to find other means of industry. As Birmingham has become synonymous with breakthrough medical research and as a leading banking center, other cities, such as Chattanooga, has reinvented itself as a naturalist’s tourist attraction with Creative Discovery Museum, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Tennessee Aquarium, river walks, nature trails, and so much more.

Evidence of the south’s industrial years still remain as rusted hulks of barge cranes loom over the shore sides and as massive oxidized frames of mining stations and foundries rot in place, visible through the overgrowth. We continued southwest, into Alabama, past Guntersville and its lock before journeying into Decatur, Alabama. Our readers who also subscribe to Cat Fancy might recognize Decatur as the home of “Meow Mix,” the cat food brand with easily the single-most annoying advertising campaign in the last 25 years. Stopping for fuel and shade at Extreme Marine Kawasaki dealership at the Riverwalk Marina, we prepared for the last little bit of riding.

Over our shoulders we could see a large thunderhead begin to gather. The river had since widened into a vast body, rough and choppy. Hugging the northern side, we neared the lock before turning in towards the Joe Wheeler State Park, in Rogersville, Alabama. Spent and weary, I was never happier to see Tracy’s smiling face as he pulled the truck around to fish the skis out the water. Laurie greeted us with cold drinks and helped us hoist our gear into the back of the rented Suburban. Tied down and good to go, we hustled down the highway as the skies blackened and rain began to fall. With over 400 miles behind us between three days of riding, I was happy to spoil myself with brisk air conditioning and a cold bottle of water. As exhausted as I was, our abbreviated version of the Tennessee River 600 only left me wanting to return next year for the whole thing.