Whitewater River

Scouting trip up & down the river for photo references.

There is currently a big hemlock log wedged under the river left rock shelf on merge lane that extends out into the river. Don't see this flushing out anytime soon and it looks pretty sketchy.

I own the last cabin on river left before you get to the gorge. Stop and say hello if you come through.

Whitewater River Trip Report New

Forum: BoaterTalk

Date: Apr 14 2004, 2:44 GMT

From: LVM

http://www.lvmvideo.com/quicktime/tommywhitewater.mov

It rained about 3 inches in the Joccasee gorges area early this morning and we switched our destination from the linville to the Toxaway.

Not a drop of water, far as I can figure the baseflow drains out real quick in the area due to the solid rock and steep gradients to the SC valley below. Also the lakes above the putin slow up the flow, no water egardless,

so we went to the upper whitewater and it was low. 6 inches on the gauge and dropping.

The only thing of note was Tommy Hilleke's run of the box canyon of the the whitewater. This mini gorge is unique to the East Coast, existing no where else I know of (maybe in New York St. or something).

Anyway, Corran is the only person we have heard of running it. There is always wood in it, as there was today, and it was kinda manky.

But if it was clean it would be cooler than hell to run down through.

Basic layout

Big slide entry, lands on rock..

8 footer lands in pothole, with what appears to be a large rootball and horizontal log.

then right into a log across the river only 3 feet up on one side and in the river on the other.

A couple of us portaged around and seal launched in above the bottom tw drops.

The seal launch first scoped out by Dave was a wee bit wobly, but we were committed to it. Chris Granthams was unluky to be last, and instead of risking falling into the crack/drop half in kayak, he chose to throw his boat into the pothole upstream, jump in and clamber in his cockpit.

The crack was about 4 feet wide and 15 feet tall. The final falls is a near vertical 25 footer.

Most chose the river left hand double boof. From the bottom it looked good...down the middle.

Daniel

LVM

This pull off yields a short 50 foot descent to the river. Start just upstream of the truck in this picture for a rough trail down to the river.
Start right here to avoid the undercut on river left, but plane over the flow driving to the left to avoid the meat of the hole at center and right. Good fun and a good place to swim.
There are two lines here. The far right yields a 17 foot boof that can be tricky. The easier line is on the left down the far side, running a chunky double ledge. Go fast, clear the first one and be ready for a big landing.
This is by far the big one on the run. Scout and portage on the right. Run down the middle fast and with a big boof off the 15 footer, and upon landing drive hard right away from the nastiness on the left. There is also some nastiness on the right next to the big drop, but a big boof should clear it.
We are standing next to the middle big drop here.
Down the middle looks pretty brainless and if it wasn't for the sketchy seal launch in from river right this would be more popular.

12-15 foot waterfall at the bottom of the big slide below hwy 281

nice slide below the bridge