Here in North Carolina we are not always blessed with ideal water conditions. It's very difficult to gauge when the best creeks and rivers will be running, simply because we depend entirely on rainfall, rather than snowpack like out West. One thing that I love about living in the Southeast however, and Asheville specifically, is that we have year round low water creek runs to stay in shape and fresh for when the big stuff runs.
My two personal favourite places for this are the ultra classic Green River Narrows, and Triple Falls on the Little River. The Green is dam controlled and runs for most of the year, and well, even when Triple Falls is bony, like it was today, it's still a great place to practice your creeking skills.
I was able to get outside on this 65 degree(!) January day, and paddle in these two great training grounds. The Green was running at a standard 100% flow, or about 10 inches on the new gauge, and my good friends Cooper Lambla, Chris Schell, and Will joined me for a quick film session. I've only included a couple of shots of Cooper, as he will probably be putting up an update of his own soon, and we saved his best shots for that. Awesome run on a beautiful day, and after meeting up with Johnny Kentucky and Billy we packed up and drove the half hour to Triple Falls. For anyone who hasn't heard of Triple Falls, it is a spectacular series of drops descending a total of around 90 ft. The first two drops are good clean fun, and I would describe the third one as scary and stressful. You have to be really pissed off for that one, because even a perfect line hurts a bit, and a not so perfect line will have some serious consequences. No third drop silliness on this video guys, sorry. Either way, it's an awesome couple of drops, and great practice for lots of other bedrock runs, like Horsepasture or Toxaway.
There is also a class 2/3 section between Triple Falls and the parking lot, so a couple of those rapids are included as well, for anyone interested in running from the big drops down. More water is recommended for that section though, and for 10 foot Hooker Falls downstream.
Anyways, enjoy the vid.
Download Here(17 mb)
-Chris Gragtmans
**All photos by Mefford Williams. You're the man Mefford!**
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