Clear Creek
4. Lilly to Nemo (Clear Creek Gorge)
| Difficulty | II-IV |
| Length | 7.2 mi |
| Avg Gradient | n/a |
| Gauge | Clear Creek at Lilly Bridge Near Lancing, Tn |
| Flow Rate as of 15 minutes | 23 cfsbelow recommended |
| Reach Info Last Updated | September 26, 2024 |
River Description
Logistics: The take-out for Clear Creek is actually on the Emory River at the old Nemo Bridge. From the town of Wartburg (willl find a National Park visitor center here), follow the signs to the Nemo Access from Old Highway 27 and head out the southwest corner of town and continue 6.0 miles down to the river. Ample parking and a nice day-use area with changing area and picnic tables can be found upstream river left of the old Nemo Bridge. This is a great meeting point and place to hangout after your run. To reach the put-in, head back up to Old Highway 27 and go west 1.9 miles and turn up onto Highway 27 and after 3.3 miles turn left onto Highway 62. Follow this road 9.1 miles to the turn for Lilly Access (marked by a sign). The road to this access winds 3.3 miles down to the river. You will find parking downstream river left of the bridge.
Description: The Clear Creek Canyon from Lilly Bridge to the Obed River confluence is only 1.5 miles but the run continues on the Obed and then the Emory River for a full 7.5 mile run. At moderate flows this is a good intermediate run for those who also appreciate the scenery of the undeveloped river canyon. The pools between rapids are a little long in places, but there are several good class III rapids. Just be aware of the undercuts as there are a couple bad ones on this run.
Downstream of Lilly Bridge, the river flows through Jack's Rock, Camel Rock, Wooten's Folly, Rock Jumble, and Focus Falls. These are all pool drop class III rapids with long recovery sections in between.
Once you reach the Obed River confluence you will be on a medium volume river. Here you willl encounter four more class III rapids. the last two are Keep Right and Widowmaker. You will find some fun surfing waves in this section.
See Obed River (Obed Junction to Nemo).
For more great photos of Clear Creek see (
...River Features
Drainage area: ~171 sq.mi.
At the listed put-in drainage area is ~171 square miles (as calculated by USGS StreamStats 4.2.0 software).
After 1.6 miles, at the confluence with the Obed, the combined drainage becomes ~514 square miles (meaning likely very nearly three-times the flow).
After 4.3 miles (total of 5.9 miles), at the confluence with the Emory, drainage becomes ~613 square miles for the final mile to the listed take-out.
Jacks Rock Falls
Easy class III drop of about 8 feet. Slide five feet down a slide then 2-4 ft drop into a hole (easily punched). Boat scouting is difficult because you can't see much from the last eddy on the right.
Camel Rock
Run the Camel far river-right. The middle should be avoided because of a nasty undercut called the Camel's Hump.
Rock Jumble
The longest stretch of rapids, this long stretch of rocky rapids runs nearly a half-mile.
Obed River confluence
At the confluence (as Clear Creek merges into the Obed) flow typically triples in volume.
Canoe Hole
Big long pool. If you don't paddle across it you might never get to the takeout.
Take Out
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportWas paddling potters Ford to obj @700 CFS (awesome level) when I dropped my paddle getting out of my play boat to scout a rapid. If anyone hears of a camo Werner Sherpa found in the Obed let me know @931 252 7843.
Thanks
March 17, 2022 run in the Star Slice cataraft at approx 430cfs. This gave enough water to run down to the Obed without any problems with shallow water. 400cfs will be my new minimum flow for this section in the Star Slice Cataraft.
Using the Oakdale gauge 1000 is low but doable, 3000 is plenty, a lot of the Clear Creek rapids start washing out.
Using the Lilly gauge, 200 is pretty low. If it gets over 1200 you will be running something else.
430 on the Lilly gauge is nice class III.
Clean run on 2/27/19. No wood to speak of. Easy intermediate run at med/low water.
Yellow OC spotted pinned under Camel Rock today (March 23rd) around 7pm. Pinned boat is not in the way. We didn't try extracting since we were running short on daylight. Hope owner is fine.
There is a hike out option for emergencies or 'with permission' short day runs called ''Canoe Hole'' which is park service road / property BUT the road is impassable except by 4wheelers and the road goes through a farm and the last parking is someone's front yard. We asked Mr. Hardwick and his dog Bear for permission to park outside his house at the end of Hardwick road and it was granted. This gave us a 1 mile shuttle to Lilly Bridge, a paddling trip to rocky beach at the end of a long pool 2 rapids below the confluence and a steep / rocky 30 minute hike up to our cars.
If you use this option, be respectful and remember this is the Bible Belt! Do not change clothes in his front yard (there is no where else to do it - so we drove shuttle in fleece) don't let your dog out to chase cattle, drink beer, drop cigarette butts or gas receipts etc. He asked that we stay on the road around his field rather than cut through - which seemed obvious but might have been an issue in the past. We looked for trash to pick up for him and there was NONE.
Lower Clear Creek into the Emory Class 2-4 (listed on AW as Clear Creek - 4. Lilly to Nemo).
- Minimum flow is 200 cfs for canoes, 600 cfs for Avon Ranger on Clear Creek at Lilly bridge near Lancing, TN.
- Max flow is about 2,000 cfs.
- Run is 7.5 river miles.
- Downstream of Lilly Bridge, the river flows through Jacks Rock, Camel Rock, Wootens Folly, Rock Jumble, and Focus Falls. These are all pool drop class III rapids with long recovery sections in between.
- Once you reach the Obed River confluence you will be on a medium volume river. Here you will encounter four more class III rapids. The last two are keep right and widow maker. You can find some good surfing waves in this section.
Trey Barrow on Clear Creek
The DeVoe's punching the hole at Jacks Rock in high water