Fun, Friendship and Adventure

In 1971, National Public Radio, Federal Express and Disney World were all born. Apollo astronaut Alan Shepard became the fifth person to walk on the moon and the first to try golfing on it. And in the mountainous southwest corner of North Carolina, where the spritely Nantahala River cut a steep gorge 1,600 feet below the surrounding peaks, Horace Holden Sr. bought a small roadside motel.

It was called the Tote’N’Tarry and it sat on a bend in the river along U.S. 74 where the Appalachian Trail crosses the river at Silvermine Creek. But Holden had more in mind than just operating a motel.

Holden, founder of Camp Chattahoochee in Roswell, Georgia, loved canoeing, the outdoors, and being of service to others. Co-founder of the Georgia Canoeing Association, he helped organize the Southeast’s first whitewater slalom race on the Nantahala. He saw the potential for the river to become a gathering spot, training ground and destination for outdoor enthusiasts.

With its dependable dam-controlled flow, playful rapids and easy roadside access, the Nantahala was a perfect spot to introduce people to paddle sports. So in the winter as 1972 arrived, Holden floated an idea to Aurelia and Payson Kennedy, friends of his from Atlanta’s First Presbyterian Church: to create a river center to introduce people to the joys of paddling, hiking and other adventurous outdoor pursuits.

The Holdens and the Kennedys had four kids each, and Horace and Payson had both attended Emory University, where they were on the swim team and majored in philosophy. The philosophy of their new venture, christened the Nantahala Outdoor Center, was to introduce people to the life-changing power of nature—through fun, friendship and adventure.

The NOC was born, and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. The ripples from the paddles that Holden and the Kennedys planted in the Nantahala’s clear, cold waters have coursed through millions of lives.

“Fifty years ago, Horace, Relia and I envisioned a community where a group of friends who loved sharing outdoor adventures together could enjoy those activities more frequently while providing support and instruction to others to make it safe and easy for them to do the same,” Payson Kennedy recalls. “We were surprised and pleased at the number of highly capable people who chose to join us in this endeavor, and by the enthusiasm of the guests who participated.”

NOC’s initial niche of whitewater rafting trips has expanded to over 120 land and river-based activities: canoeing and kayaking, zip lining, mountain biking, hiking, tubing and international trips. One of the nation’s most influential outdoor recreation businesses, NOC has been a training ground for 23 Olympic whitewater paddlers, including two Olympic gold medalists. Center alumni have founded outdoor recreation businesses around the globe. Yet the biggest impact has probably been in the lives of ordinary people—individuals and families who have discovered their passion for the outdoors here and spread their gifts near and far.

The right place, the right time

NOC was an idea born in the right place at the right time. That summer, whitewater canoeing made its debut in the Munich Olympics. On July 30, the film Deliverance debuted, sparking the public’s imagination about the dangerous allure of wild rivers. Based on James Dickey’s novel and filmed on the nearby Chattooga River, the film featured Payson Kennedy among its paddling stunt doubles.

“We were running the Chattooga real regularly, so by the time Deliverance was filmed it was our favorite river,” Payson Kennedy said in a 2011 interview for Canoe & Kayak magazine. “We took John Boorman, the director, to see it and encouraged him to do the filming there.”

The film, about an ill-fated canoe trip taken by four Atlanta men, drew droves of inexperienced people to the Chattooga, which could be dangerous for the uninitiated. NOC’s emphasis on safety and training helped equip a new generation of skilled paddlers who founded rafting businesses on the Chattooga and other rivers.

Learning by doing

NOC’s early guided raft-trips on the challenging Chattooga, with its hidden potholes and potentially deadly undercut rocks, were a sort of trial by fire for guides and guests alike. Former NOC kayak instructor Les Bechdel, an international trip leader, NOC vice president and whitewater safety author, recalls Payson Kennedy’s focus on learning by doing, known as experiential learning.

“Payson gave the orientation to our crew, gave me a point or two, and then had me immediately start guiding from the put-in,” Bechdel recalled in Kennedy’s 2018 compilation, ‘NOC Stories.’ “I am not sure what the guests thought as we pinballed down the river, but I liked coordinating the strokes of the guests and piloting the raft through the easier rapids. Thankfully, Payson took over at the hard drops.”

NOC focused on honing safety procedures for guiding rafts filled with inexperienced but enthusiastic guests down a rock-choked river. “In time, our trips became choreographed like an opera, and rarely did we have a swimmer in the water for any length of time,” Bechdel wrote. “Soon, the other river companies were emulating our safety protocols.”

To this day, NOC is one of three rafting companies permitted to operate on the Chattooga.

“When we started running the guided trips on the Chattooga, we had to figure out how to make it safe,” Payson recalled in 2011. “We never had a fatal accident on our guided river trips of one of our guests.”

Champions and first descents

In conversation, one is struck by Payson Kennedy’s soft Southern accent, his dependably humble nature, and his tendency to deflect conversation from his accomplishments to that of those around him. Asked about the legacy of NOC in the outdoor world, he responded: “The thing I am most proud about—and what I think is most outstanding—is what a capable group of people it attracted.”

Organizers of the Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Museum dedicated an online gallery of paddling pioneers to Payson and Aurelia Kennedy, and almost half of the first inductees to the museum’s hall of fame have worked at NOC.

The list of outdoor leaders who got their start at NOC is long, but a few names stand out. Among them is Jim Holcombe, who has worked there off and on since 1972.

When Kennedy first met Holcombe at whitewater racing events in the early 70s, Holcombe was one of the few people who had experience guiding commercial whitewater rafting trips. Holcombe had been paddling since the early 1960s, and in the early 1970s he quietly started notching “first descents” of the most challenging whitewater rivers and creeks in the Southern Appalachians. That included being one of the first six people to paddle West Virginia’s Gauley River in 1968, and a 1973 first descent of North Carolina’s Green River Narrows, a proving ground for generations of extreme paddlers.

“A lot of times I never really broadcasted what I was doing—I would just go and do it,” Holcombe said.

“Bound … by their love of rivers”

What stands out to Holcombe about NOC and the people who have worked there over five decades? “Seeing a possibility and making it happen.” For instance, Project RAFT and Nantahala ‘90.

In the spring of 1989, a group of paddlers from NOC traveled to Siberia to participate in a week of competitions on the Chuya River with teams from 15 other nations. An exchange of international goodwill that seems poignant today, as Project RAFT stood for Russians and Americans for Teamwork.

Paddling, camping and eating together created bonds of friendship, and NOC invited participants to come to Wesser Creek at Nantahala the following March for Nantahala ‘90, the first and only international raft rally in the United States. Guests came from almost 30 nations, including the first combined East and West German team.

Heavy rains and high water created exciting conditions for the paddlers who rafted the Nantahala, Chattooga and Nolichucky rivers, and Nantahala ‘90 went down in history as a homegrown example of international goodwill.

“There is a unique community of people from around the world, a river community who are bound together by their love of rivers,” said Jib Ellison, founder of Project RAFT. It was “an opportunity for all of us to cooperate and compete, but do so in harmony.”

The same sense of camaraderie, community and shared adventure pervaded NOC’s river community. “When you get in a raft with … six other people you have never met before, by the time you finish the trip, there is a little camaraderie that happens,” Holcombe said. “The longer you stay together, the more it does.”

Five decades on, Holcombe still marvels: “It’s amazing to me I can work outside and make a living, and I really like introducing people to that kind of experience. Rivers are an amazing way to see what is happening in the natural world.”

Location and timing

Former U.S. Whitewater Team competitor and coach John Burton first came to NOC in 1974, moved there full time the following year, and went on to become president and a member of its board of directors. He credits the appeal and longevity of NOC to Payson Kennedy’s early vision of it as an intentional community.

“When he came to the NOC, the outdoor world was a vehicle for him to have fun doing the things you love, where you enjoy your work so much it doesn’t feel like work. He was famous for working seven days a week all the time, and he didn’t consider it work.”

Burton believes NOC has remained successful through successive changes of ownership due to the power of Payson Kennedy’s original idea. “The core power of NOC was the location and the timing and the people we attracted to work there,” he said. “Once they got there they realized they were involved in something really special because their leader, Payson, was so intentional. He was not a profit-driven person, although he was a very good businessman. The NOC was a special place because of its dedication to those three.”

Former NOC president Bunny Johns worked at the center from 1975 to 2002. She went on to work with Nantahala Power & Light and Duke Energy on the recreational aspects of hydroelectric relicensing on the Nantahala, Tuckasegee and Catawba rivers. Her work helped guarantee water releases that attract paddlers to challenging whitewater stream sections such as the Nantahala Cascades, Upper Nantahala and West Fork of the Tuckasegee. She still lives about a mile from the center, hiking with her dogs in the Nantahala National Forest and occasionally paddling.

“I think both NOC and our local community benefit tremendously from what has gone on here over the years,” she said.

Johns enjoys eating at the NOC’s River’s End restaurant, where she says the staff and servers “are every bit as good as working with the customers as anybody was back in the old days … It warms my heart to see how well they are doing.”

Johns says she was flattered to be inducted into the Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Museum’s Hall of Fame. “People still love the river … and we also have the Nantahala National Forest, this great place for hiking. I feel blessed to live here.”

Bouncing back and looking ahead

Payson Kennedy remains amazed at NOC’s long legacy of producing Olympic whitewater paddlers through the Nantahala Racing Club. He mentioned Evy Leibfarth, who at age 17 became the youngest whitewater slalom competitor at the Tokyo Olympics. She was also the first American woman to compete in canoe as well as kayak.

“She is the most incredible performer the U.S. has had, and is going to be a world champion, and she is only 18 years old,” Payson said. “She grew up at NOC; her father and mother were both raft guides at NOC. So the tradition has continued.”

NOC sees a pent-up demand for people to get outdoors as the pandemic wanes—a trend Payson Kennedy hopes continues in whitewater rafting, instruction and all the opportunities the center offers. “The prevailing theory is that kids today spend so much time looking at electronic devices that they don’t have any interest or time to get involved in outdoor activities,” he said. “I am hoping that the increase in interest we have seen the last two summers will continue, with people who will want to come back and participate.”