What Level Do You Need to Paddle the Alapaha River?
On the Alapaha, read the gauge nearest your run. WWALS and the Suwannee Riverkeeper put the Sheboggy range at 7.7 to 10.6 feet on USGS gauge 02316000 near Alapaha, GA (the US 82 ramp), the Statenville range at 2.0 to 10.0 feet on USGS 02317500, and the Irwinville range at 1.8 to 5.9 feet on USGS 02315920. Below the floor you are dragging or the bed is dry. Above the ceiling it is pushy and the strainers are in play. This is a rain-dependent river that can be unrunnable for most of a dry year, so the gauge decides the trip, not the calendar.
The gauge to read
| USGS 02316000 | Alapaha River near Alapaha, GA, the Sheboggy ramp, governs the upper run | live reading |
| USGS 02317500 | Alapaha River at Statenville, GA, governs the lower run | live reading |
| USGS 02315920 | Alapaha River near Irwinville, GA, the headwater reading | live reading |
Readings come from the USGS. The thresholds above are ours, measured on the water in a loaded canoe and cross-checked against WWALS Watershed Coalition and the Suwannee Riverkeeper.
What the season does to it
Winter and early spring after rain. It holds paddling water only a handful of times in a dry year.
Where you camp, and how high
High sandbars and bluff tops on the multi-day run. Camp well above the water; this river rises fast.
Where these numbers come from
We paddle this river. The ranges above are what a loaded boat needs, not what an agency publishes as navigable, and they are the numbers we use ourselves before deciding whether a trip is worth the drive. A gauge is a reading at one point on one day: rain upstream, a recent rise and the flood forecast all change what the number means, so read the trend and not just the figure.
Written by Rodney Thompson, who has paddled and camped every river on this site. Full river guide: Alapaha River · live readings for all seventeen rivers: river levels.