Читать книгу Carolina Whitewater. A Paddler's Guide to the Western Carolinas онлайн

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class: IV–V (VI)

length: 2.4 mi.

time: 1.5 hrs.

gauge: Visual

level: n/a

permits: No

gradient: 216

scenery: A

WHITEOAK DAM ON CR 1310 TO JUST ABOVE CONFLUENCE WITH NANTAHALA RIVER

DESCRIPTION: You’d better be strapped in tightly and extremely focused before slipping out of the put-in eddy, because you’re about to dance a 2.4-mile waltz with Captain Gravity. With vital statistics including a 216-foot-per-mile drop, a stream width of 30 feet, deadfalls and/or overhanging branches every 50 feet, small to nonexistent eddies, and two huge, kidney-reducing drops, Whiteoak Creek has everything the jaded hair-head could want. Actually, the gradient is very steady and generally unblocked and boat-scoutable, with a few exceptions.

You’ll often find yourself going a little faster than your comfort level would allow as you paddle into a semi-blind turn, with little hope of catching an eddy. About two-thirds of the way into the run, watch for a 10-foot drop that is best run in the center. Just downstream is a 25-foot, Class 5.2 drop consisting of four ledges practically piled on top of each other. None have particularly clean landings, though a route down the right center is barely feasible. This is serious full-contact boating. Hospital air. Scout or carry on the right. Below here the river resumes its steady downhill gradient for about 0.5 miles. The last drop above the confluence with the Nantahala is 28 feet of mega-gnarl that we’ll call Mean Mistreater. Make sure to take out at least 50 yards above this, as there isn’t much of an eddy to depend on closer to it. Then tiptoe carefully around and put in for a sane run down the Cascades, if you’ve got the energy. Mean Mistreater has been run, but not by people who put their skirts on like you and I do.