Hwy 52w to Hwy 282/76w

To get to the take-out go out of Ellijay from the Dairy Queen on Hwy 76/282 about four miles cross the Mtntown bridge and park on river left between the game room and the yellow building. The shuttle to the put-in is 11.4 miles. Head back to Ellijay on 76/282 and turn left at the DQ on hwy 5 n. into town @ the square/round-a-bout in Ellijay. Go north on hwy 52/2, when you come to the Mtntown bridge turn left before crossing it. You can park right there and walk down or if no one is already there, you will find a few places to park right down by the trail to the river. There has been a riverwide log pourover in the river for 6 years and if there is enough water to float over it you are good to go. The first mile and a half has quite a few cabins on river left. Then you get into a two mile section of undeveloped woodland. All of this is private property as evidenced by one million 'no tresspassing' signs - talk about litter! This section has some small Class I boulder garden drops and is very pretty, especially in the Spring. When you cross under a small concrete bridge, you begin a 1.5 mile section of mostly moving flatwater thru pasture land. When you come to an S-turn in the riverbed with a cabin in the S, you are approching my favorite park of the run. You will hear the mighty roar of Leonora's Ledges (class II). The main line is on river right. As water gets higher you will find several routes open up. This begins a section of ledges, maybe 1.5 miles long that is fun to play or just run. As the ledges end you will come again to pastureland on river left first and then also on the right. When you make a sharp right hand turn, you will be at Searcy Bend. Just around this bend if you look closely on river-right you will see the remains of and old cable bridge that was used back in the early 1900's for all the Searcy kids to cross the river to get to the old country school on the top of the ridge on your right. You will be going thru a section that must be run mostly on river left at low water with a few homes on river right. Just below the first house on river left you will find Taters Pourover on far river right under the trees. You will find just down from there a large rock on river right with a deep hole in front of it. There are usually a few big trout in there, if you fish. Lots of folks feed the fish along the river. You are approx. 1 mile from the takeout. The last rapid before the bridge is full of broken rocks, not a good place to flip. I have heard that some fishermen back in the 70's dynamited this area. The takeout trail is under the bridge on river right.