Travel & Leisure

Classic Passages

For a journey that will challenge body and mind, travel in the footsteps of literature’s most memorable characters. Here are eight extraordinary adventures and the eight great books that inspired them

PADDLE THE MYTHIC RIVER

The idea of white water in the Deep South was never the same after poet James Dickey published his first novel, Deliverance. In Dickey’s powerful vision, white water meant wilderness, camaraderie, and a life-or-death struggle with the primitive side of both nature and man. When you go down the river, you leave civilization and glide into the world of pure survival.

“Machines are going to fail, the political systems are going to fail...,” says Lewis Medlock, the character in the novel who comes up with the idea of the fateful river trip, “and a few men are going to take to the hills and start over.”

Medlock himself barely survives the river, which is called the Cahulawassee in the book. It is alternately a placid mountain stream and a brawling killer, as deadly as the mountain men who attack Med-lock and his companions. The white-knuckle scenes for the film version were shot on the Chattooga, which flows out of the mountains of North Carolina and forms the border between South Carolina and Georgia. Once the movie was released, thousands of people set out to run this river. A handful were killed trying.

Running the Chattooga does not have to be that extreme. Expert canoeists and kayakers do it all the time, and outfitters routinely take rafters with virtually no experience down the river. But if the river is not necessarily a killer, it is always an experience. If it is not sinister, the Chattooga is certainly lively, with sections of Class IV and V rapids that make you feel small and vulnerable in the face of the river’s undeniable force. This is what Dickey was getting after—the world as a place of powerful forces, some dark and human and some that come straight out of the earth. All of them a part of life. The tranquil stretches of the river are a ruse. Somewhere up ahead, there is broken water and then...

“It was the old sound, but it was also new, it was a fuller one even than the reverberations off the walls, with their overtones and under-tones; it was like a ground-bass that was made of all the sounds of the river...God, God, I thought...If it’s a falls, we’re gone.”

DO IT YOURSELF
The adventure An overnight raft trip through sections III and IV of the Chattooga, in the Appalachians between South Carolina and Georgia. This includes some of the very challenging water seen in the film Deliverance. The river, which was protected in 1974 under the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, is banked by Sumter National Forest to the east and the Chattahoochee National Forest to the west.
The outfitters The two top river-running outfits that work the Chattooga were founded by river guides who acted as stuntmen for the filming of Deliverance: They are Southeastern Expeditions, in Atlanta (800-868-7238, southeastern
expeditions.com), and Nantahala Outdoor Center, in Bryson City, North Carolina (888-905-7238, noc.com).
The details The season runs mid-April to late October. Both outfitters offer day and overnight river trips ranging from $60 to $240. Prices include all camping equipment (except for sleeping bag and ground pad) and meals (lunch for day trips; breakfast, lunch, and dinner for overnights). More experienced boaters can rent inflatable kayaks, called duckies, for $40 a day from Southeastern Expeditions. Canoe and kayak clinics are taught by each outfitter.
The wisdom If you capsize, grab the upstream side of your raft or canoe. You never want to be downstream of a boat in fast water. A canoe or kayak filled with water can pin you against a rock or tree with a 6-ton force. If you become separated from your boat, float on your back with your toes pointing out of the water to avoid snagging on submerged rocks. When you reach a bend in the river, stroke toward the inside bank. The current is always slower there and fastest on the outside of the bend.