Ocoee Whitewater & Cloudland Canyon

Two of the best active experiences in the southeast converge within 60 miles of Chattanooga. The Ocoee River 50 miles east of the city hosted the whitewater events of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — a sustained 5-mile stretch of Class III-IV rapids on the middle Ocoee through the Cherokee National Forest, one of the most commercially rafted whitewater runs in North America. The river drops 270 feet over those 5 miles through boulder gardens, wave trains, and four named rapids including Double Suck and Diamond Splitter. Cloudland Canyon the following morning provides the trekking counterpart — the gorge descent to Cherokee and Hemlock Falls through 600 steps into a 1,000-foot canyon on the Georgia plateau, a different kind of physical intensity from the river day but equally sustained.