Thompson

Gorges State Park

Though pictures at flow are currently lacking, NCwaterfalls has some great shots and a relatively in depth look at the river's course.

The Thompson River flows through the most rugged and beautiful region in NC. Lake Jocassee has many incredibly tough river trips and the Thompson River is probably the toughest. There are a few different ways to do it. From NC 281 to the lake the river drops 1750 feet over the course of 4.5 miles.

Though the average gradient is 400 ft/mile, there are two sections where most of this is accounted for. There are two 3/4 mile stretches where the river drops seriously. The first is encountered around 2.5 miles into the run and the second is at the end of the run, dumping right into the lake. The top steep section has a quarter mile that drops 400 feet, and throughout the whole 3/4 mile the gradient is around 1000 ft/mile. There are two very large or one big portage that comprise over half of this gradient. Finding a way around the whole stretch might be a good idea. There are runnable slides of quality laced amidst the unrunnablility, but missing an eddy would be bad to say the least.

The second steep gorge is the last 3/4 mile to the lake, which drops an average of 500 ft/mile, which brings this section into the realm of high quality class 5+. Most of the quality runnable drops are in this last short stretch. Given this information, unless you are just feeling like going on the hardest and most intense expedition in the SE, puting in at NC 281 and running the whole thing is probably more trouble than it is worth

To run the last 3/4 mile though is logistically complicated. During the months of September 15th through December, and the month of April, Musterground Road is open and provides access to the area. This road is found by turning off of NC 281 at the Bad Cre

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