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Big Pigeon River, NC
(Dries)
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Class
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Flow
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Gauge |
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IV-IV+ (1 @ V)
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350-600 cfs |
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When the Dries are
running, the flow through them is approximately equal to the flow
below the power plant (Pigeon
River Below Power Plant at Waterville) - 1,900 cfs (the maximum
flow through the power plant) - .2 x the Oconaluftee
River's flow (an estimate of Big Creek's contribution to the
flow below the power plant) |
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IV+ (2 @ V) |
600-1,500 cfs |
| Character: |
Creek run |
| Scenery: |
Steep gorge with lots of exposed rock and
enough action you are seldom aware of the interstate a hundred feet
or so up and to the right |
| Distance from Downtown
Asheville: |
60 minutes |
| Length: |
7.2 miles |
| Season: |
Infrequent hurricane / severe storm runs |
| Other sections: |
Pigeon
Gorge, several sections upstream of the Dries as described in
Bob and David Benner's Carolina
Whitewater: A Canoeist's Guide to the Western Carolinas |
| Put-in: |
Low water bridge at Harmon Den |
| Take-out: |
Parking area at the confluence with Big
Creek |
| Directions from Asheville
(to take-out): |
I-40 West to the first TN exit (Exit
451, Waterville). Turn left at the bottom of the ramp, pass
under I-40, follow the road over the bridge, and then turn left and
head upstream to the parking area at the confluence with Big Creek. |
| Shuttle: |
Return to I-40 and head east to the first
NC exit ( Exit 7, Harmon Den). Turn right off the ramp onto
the road heading to the river. Put-in below the low water
bridge. |
| Other access points: |
An alternate put-in from a service road
by-passing the first tunnel as you head upstream was by barricaded
by the highway patrol the winter the surge tank blew out. Use
it if you must (the distance and gradient is listed below), but the
highway patrol would prefer you put-in below the low water bridge at
the Harmon Den exit. The three miles of semi-flat water you
will paddle are pretty and build character (and if you are a typical
paddler you no doubt need all the character building you can get . .
.). |
| Camping: |
If it is open and you can snag a spot, the
Big Creek campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a
couple miles up the road from the take-out. There are only
twelve campsites and they're very nice, so they're in high demand.
Another option is the campground at Cataloochee, which can be
reached from both the road over the low-water bridge at the put-in
and a right turn off the road from the take-out to the Big Creek
Campground. The Cataloochee campground is a little larger
(twenty-seven sites), so the odds of getting a site are a little
better. Also fairly close is the Cosby campground, which is
much larger than either the Big Creek or Cataloochee campgrounds
(175 sites). All three campgrounds are open from mid-March to
the beginning of November; the Big Creek and Cataloochee
campgrounds are $12 per site per night, and the Cosby campground is
$14. For more information visit the NPS's
Great Smoky Mountains Camping Page. |
| Gradient |
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Average: |
63 fpm over entire 7.2 miles
85 fpm over the 4.4 miles from the alternate put-in |
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By mile: |
7.2 miles:
21, 20, 60, 123, 89, 78, 55, 39 fpm over last 0.24 miles |
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Maximum: |
148 fpm (over 0.27 miles) |
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Maximum half mile: |
128 fpm |
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Maximum mile: |
126 fpm |
| Guides |
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Online: |
American
Whitewater's Pigeon River Dries Page |
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Print: |
None, but for several sections upstream of
the Dries see Bob and David Benner's Carolina
Whitewater: A Canoeist's Guide to the Western Carolinas |
| Maps: |
MapQuest
Map (the star is located at the put-in) Re-center on the
star and zoom in for a good look at the shuttle and the roads to the
Big Creek and Cataloochee campgrounds. |
| Photos: |
Big Pigeon Photo Archive |
| Other: |
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The Pigeon River Dries are the normally waterless stretch of
river upstream of the Pigeon Gorge play run. Unlike the run
just downstream, the Dries are quite creeky with all the associated
hazards this entails plus a few extras contributed by jagged rocks
loosened by construction of I-40. The Dries almost never run.
Almost never run most years, that is; November 2000-May 2001
was different. The surge tank feeding the Walters power plant
underwent repairs, and for almost this entire period the Dries ran.
This meant that a run that at one time had been done by only a
handful of boaters became very well known. Alas, the surge
tank has been repaired, and with the exception of periods of
extraordinarily heavy rain, the Dries are dry once again.
The Dries have been run very very high (by Tom
Visnius and Corran Addison), but for mere mortals the run starts to
get very pushy around 1,500 cfs. At higher mortal flows all
but the two hardest drops (No Where to Land, which features a
shallow, rock-laden landing zone and a severely undercut left bank
at the top of the main drop, and Chinese Arithmetic, the longest
rapid on the river and the only rapid to have claimed a life) are
IV's or IV+'s, but as my friend Tom Piccirilli said of the IV+'s,
"they're IV's, but they're 4.9999's." In
addition, a swim could be nasty as some of the rock is jagged and in
places the action is continuous.
In April 1994, Tom Visnius and Corran Addison did a
BIG water run in the Dries. Corran had done the run at lower levels
(two feet over the low-water bridge at the Harmon Den exit) but it
was Tom's first visit. The river was flowing NINE feet over the
bridge (the water was all the way up in the big flat spot between
the highway and the bridge). This corresponds to 3000 cfs. Tom wrote
an account of the run for the Western Carolina Paddlers newsletter
[see below]. Corran and Tom (for the first time) were both
paddling a new boat that Corran's new company had just released . .
. the Scorpion.
Some of the folks who had driven out with Corran and Tom ran Upper
Big Creek instead. We meet Corran and Tom in the Big Creek parking
lot. Both boyz were highly animated. Corran described a typical
rapid as being like running the Upper Gauley's Pillow Rock, followed
by Sweet's Falls, followed by Iron Ring. Both Corran and Tom told
tales of thorough trashings in monster holes. Tom described being
stuck for "a long time" in one hole, finally washing out
directly into a second hole, and then washing out and just making a
must-catch eddy before a scary drop requiring a careful scouting.
Most of us would probably prefer the Dries at lower levels.
Here's Tom's article as it appeared in the May 1994 edition of
"Messing About," the newsletter of the Western Carolina
Paddlers.
The Pigeon River Dries (Careful With That Bleach, Eugene)
by Tom Visnius
At 1am, Saturday, April 23rd, I called my friend (and new WCP'er)
Philip Curry, and suggested that we run Big Creek in the morning. We
headed for the Park a few hours later, knowing that it could take
all day to hike up and then paddle down. I also called my friend
Mark and invited him to come out and watch the brave hairboaters
and, if he was lucky, paddle the lower section with us.
Phil and I were the only kayakers hanging out at the campground for
a while. As we waited, I asked a fly-fisherman about an etiquette
issue that had been bothering me since my trip down Cataloochee
Creek. On creeks in the Park, there's not a lot of room for both
hunter and boater, so it is crucial to communicate to each other on
how you would like to commingle. Does a boater give the fisher a
wide berth, thereby floating directly over the trout that he has
been sneaking up on? Or does a boater float right next to the
fisher's knees and risk an assault from a surprised sportsperson?
The second preference is not unlikely, so regardless of your
right-of-way philosophy, it is worth noting that there are many
fishers who visit Smokey Mountain National Park, and boaters should
attempt to communicate with them. Then proceed with caution. The
fellow I talked to preferred the idea of boaters paddling close to
him so as not to spook the trout
It was not long before fellow WCP'ers Gregg Merchen, Karen Craft,
Jim Sheppard, Chris Bell and Corran Addison showed up. Not among
them were Mark and his car pool, so Phil and I had to decide whether
to paddle in a fairly large group with two paddlers who had not run
Big, get ahead and stay ahead, or paddle with Corran. Corran had
copped some big air snowboarding only a week previous and his lower
half was still recovering from yet another encounter with fickle
inertia. His idea was to run the Dries of the Pigeon, which, as Phil
and I were giddily aware, was stomping down from Walters Dam at a
respectable flood-like pace. We observed on our way up to the
campground that there come situations that require us to step away
from our routines -- an unknown river in flood fell into that
category.
Maybe it wasn't flooding. I don't know; I had never run the river
before. Maybe it was merely breathing deeply after a claustrophobic
winter in Haywood County. Perhaps it was stretching its limbs for
the long parade down to Newport. Most likely, we happened to be in
the area when the folks at the dam decided to release some extra
water. Someone said that it was running 9 feet and 3000 cfs. Corran
said that nobody had run it above 2 feet. I said that all that water
should have diluted the abnormal burning stench that has given the
Pigeon its international reputation.
"Big Holes!" "Gnarly!" Words like these were
included in Corran's description of the Dries. Of course, he hadn't
seen it above 2 feet, but he did know the gorge well at lower water.
He was in no shape the five-mile hike up Big Creek, so he was trying
to gather interest in a nice, highway-accessible jaunt down a river
with more water in it than rocks.
The contrasts are distinct between Big and the Dries. First, there
is the difference between the pleasure of huffing your tub up a
steep creek for five or more miles, and the convenience of driving
on Interstate 40 for five miles. Then there is the difference in
scenery. The Dries are not exactly like paddling in a ditch behind
Wal-Mart. In fact, I seldom noticed the highway, which, being
controlled-access, limits the amount of pedestrian pollution that a
paddler is likely to come across. For the Lewis and Clarke wannabes,
however, the Dries has more than its share of road debris as a
result of the eight-lane highway carved into the gorge. Big Creek
has an old railroad grade cut into its banks, but time has smoothed
the scars, so that one seldom notices it, save for the hikers,
horse-riders, and fishermen who frequently use it. Which is more
remote? Which is more private? It would depend on what you choose
not to look at.
There is a predictable difference in scenery. The Dries has many
wide views of the gorge walls, due to the width of the river. Big
Creek is close and, at times, confining. It is scenic elysium to
paddle amongst the grand flora of Big, but sometimes that flora can
barricade the river and leave you either hoofing or swimming. There
are other differences, too. Namely water quality, quality of the
water, and, of course, WATER PURITY. I have never paddled a river,
even a smelly one, that has left my mucous membranes burning for
hours after I took-out. SIX HOURS. And what is it, exactly, that is
in the water to cause such a reaction?
Big holes! The Dries is home to the best whitewater in Western North
Carolina! Among the bigger rivers. South of the Linville. In flood,
anyways. For a flood stage river the Dries easily compares to
Section IV at flood. There were pools, and eddies, and beautiful
surfing waves. But when it comes to steering a boat through the
thick of the big rapids, a paddler should be prepared to swallow
some chemically aggressive whitewater in any of the countless
throbbing giants that adorn the Dries. Every rapid does have a line
through it; this is a general boating philosophy. But there are
holes in the Dries, and no matter the level, there will be something
in them that will lead the intrepid paddler's eyes, nose and throat
to respect where those babies once were.
According to Corran, the Dries are split into three gorges. You can
call them bends or rapids, but they are gorges. Gorge one is a good
warm-up. I say this because I don't remember the first thing about
Gorge One, except that what follows is Gorge Two. Gorge Two is
loaded with challenging whitewater, and it contains the very special
"Stairwell to Hell." It is easily spotted thanks to its
distinct horizon line. There was supposed to be a pile of rocks at
the base of the center drop.That day, the drop resembled Sweet's
Falls, but with an aggressive looking hole at the base that
resembled the hole in Tower on the Russell Fork. That hole is clean,
isn't it We sneaked to the right, and then wove our way through a
Golf Course of Gigantic Holes. Each hole looked like a good ride in
and of itself, but it is best to proceed with caution. There are
plenty of good times eagerly awaiting the tired, choking, blinded
paddler further down Gorge Two.
One of these is called "No Place To Run." At nine feet,
just shoot from right to left, like in Iron Ring. But, again, it
would be best to avoid the massive lung mashers to either side of
the theoretical preferred line. Gorge Three is a lot of fun. With
the proper hazmat suit, I could be tempted to play in Gorge Three at
any level. It is really fun, but not entirely challenging. Think of
it as a way to expose yourself more completely to the caustic soda
of the Pigeon, until you reach the Waterville powerplant and the
sparkling, crystalline waters of Big Creek. Yes! Back to nature.
Ask the owners of the private property along scenic Lake Logan why
they didn't build their park just downstream of the Champion paper
mill. It's a beautiful, clear lake built on the West Fork of the
Pigeon, about six miles upstream of Canton. Ask them how they like the water quality.
Ask them if that's where
their slalom kayaking friends train. Ask them what would cause a
paddler's entire face to burn after running the Dries of the Pigeon.
I don't know who they are, but I suspect the folks at Champion
International Corporation, (704) 646-2000, might know.
Editor's note: The descriptions Tom and Corran gave in the parking
lot immediately after their run were a tad more animated than those
related above. Corran described a typical rapid as being like
running the Upper Gauley's Pillow Rock, followed by Sweet's Falls,
followed by Iron Ring. Both Corran and Tom told tales of thorough
trashings in monster holes. Tom described being stuck for "a
long time" in one hole, finally washing out directly into a
second hole, and then washing out and just making a must catch eddy
before a scary drop requiring careful scouting. Most of us would
probably prefer the Dries at lower levels...
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