C-Forum

Yesterday evening Matt and I did the hike-up elkmont section of the Little River in the smokies after work. It's up to about a 3 mile run depending on how far you hike (last night we hiked about 2 miles)

I would say this run is at least the same quality as tremont and the amazing thing is that it runs more often. I would actually compare the quality of the run to Thunderhead Prong (the tremont tributary)

Tremont is good when the little river is 3.4ft and above and this run is good when the little is in the 3.0-3.4 ft range (last night was 3.15 and it was a good medium level)

It's amazing because:

-there is no road blasted rock it's all smooth smokies boulders
-you don't see anyone (not even hikers in the winter)
-it's a spectacular III-IV smokies boulder garden run with one nasty IV+ that you could walk.
-it runs frequently

I'm going to start running this section a lot more. Hopefully we can take a group down during ALF.

Makes ALF more and more tempting...

Will runs down there hold for the weekend? Any chance of Watauga holding?

Its going to rain again Friday night. Most rivers TN and NC will be running this weekend

I inquired about that section a couple of times last year, would love to see it.

John,

You would love the hike-up section of the Little. It's way less boat abusive for Ocoees/Vipers than Tremont because there is no road blast in the middle of the lines. The lines are really clean s-turns around holes. If you ride the eddy lines and seams you can stay dry and not touch rock at medium levels. Also, the boofs are really smooth too. It's sort of like an easier upper big creek or a larger version of thunderhead prong. Those are the 3 "cleanest" boulder garden runs in the smokies.

All of the the other boulder garden runs in the smokies are classics too but there are some manky drops and rocks where you don't want them to be on Tremont, Ramsey's, West Prong etc...

This is a great run!