Little Harpeth River

WOOD/STRAINERS/LOGJAMS...I ran this in a C1 on Sunday, 07/12/26, from Hillsboro Pike to confluence with the Big Harpeth and on to Old Harding Pike. The Nashville Ice Storm of January 2026, put an absurd amount of fallen tress into the river. I went over, around, and through 15 river wide log jams or fallen trees. Over the next few years, these will break up and reform every time its floods. Wood is going to be a hazard on this run for years to come.

The run was still fun. The slide rapid at the confluence with the Big Harpeth was in. It is normally washed out due to a flooded Big Harpeth. I've only paddled the confluence slide rapid 2 x out of 100+ runs. The Big Harpeth cuts deeper into the earth than the Little Harpeth does, so the Little Harpeth has to catch up through a rock slab slide rapid that drops 3-4 feet. It creates a fantastic surfing wave.

As of 11/7/2009, the river in Edwin Warner Park is free of strainers all the way to the Harpeth. It hadn't rained for 5 days, but there was still enough water to make it through without getting out of the boat. When the water level is barely enough to paddle, your best surfing wave is at the confluence.
Also, a greenway on river right now connects the picnic shelters to Hwy 100. This makes it easy to set up a bike shuttle if you are only using one car. You will need to bike across the bridge and then walk through a field to access the greenway.

This is an awesome website

This runs great at 1.5' of rain when you cannot get out of town. It will empty in a day so you have to hit it right after the rain. You can run it for a few days, but plan to get stuck, and not really see any rapids. I ran this over Thanksgiving and there is a bad strainer in the middle of warner park. If you put in at your first left in the park you will hit 2 other nice little rapids before hitting warner rapids.

The picture above is of Tunnel Rapid on the Big Harpeth.

The picture above is NOT from the Little Harpeth. That picture is of the 'Tunnel' at 'Narrows of the Harpeth' State Park on the Big Harpeth. The 'Tunnel' was created before the Civil War by explosives. The 'Tunnel' does terminate in a 5 foot waterfall but collects cave strainers and has jagged exploded rocks in the landing zone. It gets run far to often, especially by people without helmets like in the picture.

Great run with more water