Little (Fr.Broad trib)
1. Triple Falls
| Difficulty | V+ |
| Length | 0.8 mi |
| Avg Gradient | 211 fpm |
| Gauge | Davidson River Near Brevard, Nc |
| Flow Rate as of 47 minutes | 1.32 ftrunnable |
| Reach Info Last Updated | December 17, 2025 |
Projects
Access to Triple Falls on the Little River in NC was long forbidden by private corporate ownership. The land was bought by the state in the late 90’s and Dupont State Forest was created. The State Forest managers initially prohibited paddling in the Forest, because of safety concerns. American [...]Read More
River Description
News Flash: AW Restores Access to NC's Little River!
Click here for the story.
A very steep & stout section of 4 significant waterfalls. High Falls is the biggest & only been ran 4 times by the regions elite level boaters. Triple Falls accounts for the other 3 drops (duh). It is ran successfully these days but occsionally can put a boater on the shelf for a while. Unless you are good enough to run this section it is best just to consider other options in the area.
One significant injury could ruin access for other boaters.
For More info check out: DuPont State Forest Official site.
If you don't want to mess with the big drops on this section you can paddle from the Base of Triple Falls to Hooker Falls
River Features
High Falls
First successfully ran by Ryan McAvoy & Michael Ferraro on April 15th, 2018. Has been ran two other times successfully as well. Unless you know what you are doing just enjoy the beautiful view.
Drop one
First Drop: Run on left, an autoboof, but don't boof to hard or you might hurt that back
Second Drop: Drive to the right and don't try to hard to get that nose up. Its another hard landing.
Drop Two
Left Line: just drive to the left and bounce, bounce, splash. It is a very real posibility that you could be in for a hard, green water landing if you pull off a big boof so try to drop the knees.
Middle Line: Just start 2 ft to the right of the rooster tail up top and drop down make sure you catch the eddy on the bottom so you don't mistakenly fall over the third drop. You can also go about over to 10 ft to the right of the rooster tail and still be fine, just make sure you dont hit the big rooster tail at the bottom.
Drop Three
Not to be taken lightly but if you line up the untrance right the rock does the work for you
Stay to the right of the feinght rooster tail at the top and this will put you on the right side of the seam. Your gunna wanna be far right enough right that you minimize the drop on your back while not going to far right as instead of melting back into the seam you will lauch. Once you drop keep a good bace and hold on. The seam kinda naturally kicks you out so you only have to worry about staying upright.
Tip lean forward a little bit and let the tip of your bow hit first and then you boat should slide out to flatt to lighten the impact on your back. This is a proper Southeast boating technique and if you lean too far forward it could end with you going over the handlebars.
Take Out
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportHigh falls has now been run by Ryan Mcavoy and Michael Ferraro on April 15th,2018 both successfully!
damon getting a little bit of air on the 2nd drop at Triple Falls
damon getting some massive air on the 3rd drop at triple falls
Went up the yesteday an the level was 1.92 on the gauge, Triple falls had alot of water coming over it making the top two drops hard to run, due to the amount of water that was falling off the left side of the middle drop(right into a giant boulder) Anything below 1.7 and that should be out of play. At this level 1.92 the lip at hooker falls is perfect for sending beginners off, much lower and it begins to get scrappy and sticky at the lip of the drop. makeing it more difficult to come off clean.
Triple Falls Dupont State Forest, NC
2 ft to the right of the rooster tail!
I didn't think there was enough water to run the drop. As you can see, there was.
There was only about an inch of water flowing over the lip of the drop. It went like this; grind to a stop, push with your hands, and fall into the pool at the bottom.
This photo gives you a good perspective of the size of the drop. Leland's book states that the gradient is 120' over 1/10th of a mile. Pretty cool stuff.
I didnt want to land flat even tho the pool is about 2 feet deep so I delayed boof off the lip and landed nice and soft while ever one else was complaining about their backs ;-)
This is a great way to freak out the tourists!!!
'Have yor ever done this before?!?' says the hiker.
No way to gauge water level but its a little higher than shown in Wayne Gentry's Southern Fried Creekin'. Appeared to be the perfect level for all three.
Unsure of any way to gauge level except it was higher than level featured in Wayne Gentry's Southern Fried Creekin'....but it seemed about perfect.