How to Tube the ‘Hootch: Another Dispatch from Camp Scamp

Author’s Note:  As I posted the last post, I realized that there are actually people out there who have never ridden an inner tube down the Chattahoochee River.  These people, of course, have been deprived and have obviously led a sheltered life.  I wrote this a couple of years ago, during our last vacation to Helen, Georgia, in the North Georgia Mountains.  Our whole great big family loves to spend the week together up there.  Allen first took the girls there years ago.  They loved it so much that they passed up trips to the beach and to Disney World to spend time up there.  The kids and I have become converts, too.  Our kind of fun up in Helen is to “tube the ‘Hootch:” to ride down the Chattahoochee River in inner tubes, all of the family (just 6 of us when I wrote this- we’ve expanded since then).  Here is my handy guide to tubing the ‘Hootch, in case you ever get up that way.

To tube the ‘Hootch, you put on your bathing suit, grab your push stick and your water shoes, pile everyone into the pickup truck, and drive down the street to the Cool River Tubing Company. You pay your fee- five dollars for the short run or the long run, nine dollars if you want to tube all day.  You line up outside the storage building, and pick up a big plastic inner tube.  You want it to match your outfit- so you choose blue, green, yellow. There are no pink ones, unfortunately- those are used by a competing company.  The kids then have to decide whether to get a kid-sized tube or a grown-up sized tube- of course, they always want the grown up size, even if they’re so small that they’re going to fall out the bottom.  And then you have to choose what kind of bottom you want:  hole or no hole.  Tubes with no holes are for those who want to keep their butt relatively dry and warm; the open tubes are for the daredevils who wish to brave the 70 odd degree water. If you have a tube with no hole, you have to decide how deep you want the seat. A deep seat can make a difference when you’re trying to push yourself down the river and over rocks- too deep a seat makes this a literal pain in the ass. 

You pick up straps to lash inner tubes together by their handles—they come in handy for roping in kids who cannot or will not manage by themselves on the ‘Hootch:  those kids that either goof off and ‘accidentally’ falling into the water, again and again, or who manage to keep getting stuck on rock after rock.  When I get tired of watching either spectacle, I usually grab the offender and strap them to my tube.  It’s more fun that way, anyways:  you have better momentum and an easier time getting over the obstacles.

After collecting your tube, push stick, life jacket, water shoes and straps, you head over to the school bus, give the employees your tube to load into the trailer, and climb on board with a ton of excited kids, old couples, young families, church groups, and one family that most definitely is not from Around Here and has never been tubing in their lives and asks all kinds of nervous questions of the other riders.

 You get trucked up the river a ways, and then dropped off by the side of the river with your tube and your gear.  You plunk your tube into six inches of water at the drop-off site.  You push your tube into deeper water, where there’s a good current. Then you plop into the tube and give yourself a shove, and you are floating down the river, somehow, because the water is not even a foot deep in some places.

On crowded days, like the weekend, there is a log jam of tubes on the river. I sort of imagine them as giant platelets clogging a blood vessel (what do you expect? I’m a pathologist). You get really friendly with your neighbors on the crowded days, as you bump into them, shove off of them, dodge their cigarettes (occasionally) and stick your feet in their faces.

On less crowded days, your family is strung down the river, in no particular order. The only given in this scene is that one of the kids will be at the end of the line of the family, flailing around in the tube because they’re stuck on a rock. 

You get to watch all of the different approaches to tubing: one guy has his head back and is dozing; two young lovers are hooked together and in their own little world; a kid is paddling along, somehow; a mom is herding all of the kids together with the pushstick, or she is floating in the back of her group, as the sweeper. 

You float down the river, past the hotels and restaurants and folks watching you from their tables, entertained by watching you try to push yourself off a boulder.  You try to dodge the fly fishers.

Along the way, there are a couple of trees that people have loaded with their chewing gum.  There is a collection of single flip flops nailed to a tree:  the tree of ‘lost soles’- get it?

There are rocks to maneuver around, and the occasional ‘rapids,’ where the water moves a little faster, and you may occasionally plunge a foot or two.  There’s a very deep spot on the river which serves as a swimming hole, if you’re brave enough to jump into the cold water (I’m not).

And then you’re at the end of the ride, behind Cool River Tubing Company. You jump into the water, hand your tube to the helpers, and climb a set of stairs back to dry land.  You get your land legs again, and head back to your hotel, all drippy wet and planning the next ride. Maybe the long run tomorrow. Maybe the short run again later tonight, if it doesn’t storm.