By SUZANNE WELANDER

Family Fun on the Toccoa. The Toccoa’s many assets  incude beautiful scenery, wooded seclusion and mild rapids. See more photos of the Toccoa at the end of this guide.

The Toccoa is a purely delightful mountain stream. Its upper reaches harbor a primitive woodland paddling experience with mostly mild rapids. Unregulated by dams, the river’s flow becomes the major feeder for Blue Ridge Lake. Below the dam, the river widens as it weaves through settled lands on its way to McCaysville and into Tennessee, where it is thereafter known as the Ocoee River.

From Deep Hole Campground to Blue Ridge Lake, a distance of about 17.5 miles. Allow 1-2 days. Class I-II with some III.        See MAP

DESCRIPTON: While it is navigable by canoe or kayak above the junction with Cooper Creek in Fannin County, the highest usual put-in is the U.S. Forest Service campground at Deep Hole on GA 60. The first 3-mile segment traverses some farmland, some woodland, and intersects with a couple of roads before veering into the fragrant realm of the undisturbed forest. Putting in downstream of the campground where GA 60 passes near the river brings the forest’s entrance 1.8 miles closer. (more…)