Blake McPherson

The annual Ocoee River cleanup to clear trash and debris from the river and the road leading into the gorge took a little more than three hours Friday with 145 volunteers.

“It’s a record number,” said event chairman Blake McPherson just after 9 a.m., when everyone signed in and collected their tools for the day — trash bags.

Staff Photo by Allison Kwesell Leah Riklin, a guide with Ocoee Adventure Rafting, looks for trash at the second damn at the Ocoee River. Local rafting guides joined to pick up litter along the river for the annual Ocoee River cleanup on Friday.

“We’re the people who use the river the most, and we want to keep it clean,” said Mr. McPherson, who also is the manager of Cherokee Rafting.

Paul Brown, a staff member of Big Frog Expeditions, stopped to chat as he picked up trash along U.S. Highway 64.

“We found a paddle and a lot of cans and a few fast food-type cans,” Mr. Brown said.

Each year, the 21 operating rafting outfitters count more than a quarter-million raft rides on the Ocoee, which also was the site of whitewater events for the 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta.

The Ocoee River’s headwaters descend from the high country of northern Georgia into southeastern Tennessee. Weaving westward, the whitewater rolls through the Ocoee Gorge and into Lake Ocoee, also known as Parksville Lake.

The river has been open to rafters every weekend since March 31. Beginning Monday, it will be open five days a week, closing only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for Tennessee Valley Authority power generation.

This year, the Ocoee River Outfitters Association extended the cleanup to cover nearly 20 miles of river, from downtown Copperhill, Tenn., and McCaysville, Ga., to Parksville Lake.

“In years past, we just cleaned the upper and middle sections that we raft,” said Kip Gilliam, owner and guide of Cascade Outdoors. “We wanted to do more this year.”

By the morning’s end, the rafting guides and outfitters’ staff had collected papers, cans, wrappers, tires, truck bumpers and other trash. Bags lined U.S. Highway 64 through the gorge as the U.S. Forest Service collected them as quickly as possible and hauled them to a waiting trash bin.

Summer rafting guide Eric Aguero, of Chapel Hill, N.C., said this is his fourth year to volunteer.

“We like to have a clean place to work,” he said. “And it’s a nice day.”