This is one of the coolest places I’ve ever paddled. Many park and play spots are man made but I can say with confidence that there are none in the world quite like this one. The play wave is actually in a tunnel. There is a ~5 mile oxbow in the river and in 1799 a Nashville business man named Montgomery Bell had a few of his ‘associates’ bore a hole through the hill between the two oxbow limbs. He picked the location because he only had to dig a tunnel ~50 yards long to get the water to drop about 20 feet. The gradient created enough power to run his smelting operation, now it makes a spectacular play spot.

There are stairs and a observation platform to look at the entrance for scouting. I recommend scouting the tunnel every time you go, especially if the river has flooded recently. Logs frequently get lodged inside and make for some of the gnarliest strainers I’ve ever seen. Make sure to check for logs across the tunnel entrance, new logs hung up on rocks inside, and logs lodged between the ceiling and floor where the tunnel funnels down near the exit.

The entrance is wild, you put in at the canoe launch at the state park and float down a few hundred yards of flat water. All of a sudden a hole in the side of the mountain opens up and half of the river flows through. At the best water levels the ceiling is ~7 feet above your head. The first feature inside is a tiny drop that plunges steeply into strange little hole that won’t hesitate to ender and flip you if you aren’t careful. I like to catch the eddy on the left just after this hole to check things out and set myself up for the ‘rapid’ that comes next. Just below the eddy I have seen many logs hung up on jagged limestone boulders and have had to set up a Z-drag to get a boat un-pinned so be careful! (I also saw some rednecks wreck a canoe and lose their beer even after I told them what a terrible idea it would be to run their aluminum canoe through the tunnel.) I usually run the rapid on the tunnel right side and slalom down through the logs and boulders that shift frequently. I would consider it a class III rapid that gets harder depending on how much water, the configuration of debris, and the amount of light there is. BE CAREFUL!

At the end of the rapid the tunnel funnels down into a much smaller chamber where the ceiling is only ~3 feet above your head. Smacking your paddle becomes somewhat of a problem. The very last and the only nice wave in the tunnel is a great play spot. Right where this wave is the floor of the tunnel flattens out causing a hydraulic leap because the velocity of the water slows. You can catch the eddy in the short flat section and surf the wave for extended periods of time at the best water levels. It is a great spin wave although the spin direction changes depending on what type and the amount of debris that exists upstream. Usually one spin direction is easy and the other is nearly impossible. Take care when you wash of the wave because the flat spot/eddy is only about 20 feet long. After that, the tunnel daylights and the water drops ~8 feet into a large plunge pool. The drop is really fun at moderate water levels and can be run anywhere but as the flow increases the hole at the bottom becomes much stickier and should be run on the right side.

Optimum water levels are in the range 1000-1500 CFS on the Kingston Springs USGS gauge. It can be run a few hundred CFS below that and dries up around 500 CFS. Max levels are in the mid 2000s, above that there is too little headroom or the tunnel entrance is covered with water and becomes a whirl-pool that should be avoided at all costs.

Paddling the river is also fun if you want a shuttle-less flat-water paddle that flows year-round.