Emory

Known as the Emory Headwaters, this section of the Emory is located geologically above the massive sandstone layers that give the Obed-Emory drainage its signature canyon vibes. Here we have a mountain stream flowing steeply off the Frozen Head region of the Cumberland Mountains, a range rich in coal, and a history of resource extraction. When the water is too high for almost anything else, it may be very worthwhile to head upstream of the Hwy 27 crossing of the Emory and see what it looks like up there. Folks have paddled and enjoyed short, sweet little stretches of bedrock goodness by hiking up Greasy Creek and Little Creek, and the 3-4 mile section of the Emory upstream of Little Creek, which is definitely a small creek itself, that far up in the headwaters, has a high paced, potentially wood-fraught section that when it's running good, gives a solid Class III+ experience on continuous rapids with occasional undercut walls, bedrock ledges, and lots of wave trains. The roughly ten miles of the Emory downstream of Little Creek and ending at Montgomery bridge, is pretty darn flat. While it moves quickly in the few miles below Little Creek when the water is cranking, things slow to a crawl for many miles down to Montgomery Bridge, and the start of Emory River Canyon - a more reliably enjoyable section of the Emory.

Rob Martin contributed:

This is a good run to take if everything in the Obed system is too high. If you're paddling for the whiterwater, you're going to be disapointed. But if you like history and class II water, this is a gem. There are several old cemetaries on the drive to the putin. Several of the graves are of men who died during the 'War Between the States.' Union soldiers from Tennessee, whose families were as fervently independant as they were poor and unlike Hollywood's stereotypical hillybilly, were intelligent, reverent people who have produced more than their share of writers, scientists and scholars--of which I am not. Ruins

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