The Creeky Part of Little River of the Smokies

Today brought another personal first descent for me. With the Little River gauge still showing 3.2 ft at Townsend, Caleb and I decided to see what the Elkmont Hike-Up section of the Little River would be like. Surprisingly to me, there was plenty of water though it didn't look so at the takeout bridge. Upstream, we found a more narrow channel and some good gradient. Overall, there are only 3 class IV rapids and a lot of class III rapids on this run but they are all fun. We had some wood to deal with but almost all of it was sneakable. Gary came along to document the run for me by taking pictures and video. This would also be my maiden voyage for my new Jackson Mega Rocker.

As you can see, there were several other boaters hiking this run too. The trail is an old railroad bed and is fairly level with only a slight grade.

I tried out my NRS backpack today too for the 2.3 mile hike. After a few times of adjusting, I finally got it dialed in. Checkout the reflective tape on my drytop...I'm fired up!

There's me getting ready to put-in. This will be the first time this Mega Rocker has hit the water.

Caleb running the Melting Pot.

Me running the Melting Pot. The large boulder behind me is severely undercut but was not hard to avoid.

We all got out to scout The Scrambler. We all tried to boof into a river-right eddy but most of us missed and ended up running the middle. At lower water, the middle line would be full of pin potentials. This day brought plenty of water though and some good lines.

The Hike-Up Elkmont Section of the Little River of the Smokies proved to be a fun class III-IV river that will run when everything else is gone. On this day, the area levels were:

Little River Gauge at Townsend 3.2ft in the morning and 3ft in the evening.
Treemont (Middle Prong of the Little River) wasn't running at all.
The West Prong (of the Little Pigeon) was 0.9ft and is only one drainage over the ridge.

There was plenty of water and the run was padded really well. I'll be returning to this run again!

Till next time...Pray for rain!