NC First D
I woke up this morning bummed about how it always rains as final exams come around. It hasn’t rained in North Carolina in years, and here I am about 5 days from graduating from college and we get hammered. Last night I told myself to stay strong, it will rain again, and I should take advantage of not having classes today to get some good studying in. Then I talked to Joe Barkley and Ronnie Dillbeck and everything changed. They were heading out to check out an unexplored little microcreek somewhere deep in the hills of Western North Carolina. Screw it, I’m in, I can stay up all night studying. So here are some nice photos of the more memorable rapids.
This is what we saw at the put in. Huge slide. About a 20′ steep drop into a little roostertail pinch, onto a screaming right hand roostertail that set us up for lift-off. After landing stern first mega boof style, you fly down through another pinch, then dodge left, dodge right, and try and miss any football players coming in for the side tackle. It was sick. The only problem is it is literally in someone’s back yard. We never condone trespassing, but luckily no one was home.
This is the second half of the big put-in slide.
After the big slide at the put in, we had to portage a big log in a pinch where the river was about 3′ wide. Then there were about 4 drops of 15′-20′ which were quality. Here’s a weak shot looking upstream at the third drop and Joe in the zone.
After about a mile of tight, steep gorge goodness, we hit a spell of flatwater. The creek meanders through the rhodo but there were surprisingly few logjams and only one emu. Ronnie was so scared of the emu he decided to boof this sweet little drop.
Next up was this chaucy drop. Right of center was pretty smooth. Left was a ‘ton from hell and right was a clapper for sure. It was fun. Then there was a huge horizon line. Turned out to be about a 20′ onto solid rock. Luckily, we found a way to portage/sneak it down the side.
Mr. Dilbeck thankful to save his once broken back for another day of heavy lifting.
After this were some more fun slides and a meandering class I+. We got to the car in about 2 hours. If nothing else, let this tale of nonmisadventure fire you up to get out there and keep looking. There’s still tiny little gems to be had. Get you’re topo’s out, there’s more rain on the horizon.
