Durham Rivers by Joe Slater
| River: | Flat |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 08/30/2004 |
The recent passage of the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston and Hurricane Frances through central North Carolina gave those of us in the Triangle area the chance to run some rivers that normally do not have enough water for paddling. Note that at some levels these rivers can be good novice runs, but often they have high water and should not be run by anyone who is not confident in big water and not comfortable with the difficulty in getting to shore. Even the best paddlers swim sometime, but at high water, unless you're pathologically convinced that you'll make your rolls, you don't need to be there.
 On August 30th, I made two runs of the Lower Flat River with a number of folks. This is a short run that normally has a nice play wave when it's running around three to four feet. On this day, the river was running high at seven feet. The Flat was swift this day. There were few eddys, and of course, no easy way to get to shore, but the low water bridge at the put-in was trapping most of the wood and prevented it from floating down stream. There were several nice Class III wave trains until we got to the site of the surfing wave. In the place of the wave, was an Ocoee-sized hole that extended ¾ of the way across the river. This was at the top of a nice Class IV wave train with 6-8 foot waves. No, I'm not exagerating, and yes, this is in Durham Co. Members of our group during the second run of the day, especially Greg Joyner, had a ball in the hole which was deep enough to hide the surfer from viewers downstream. |
On September 8, 2004, a number of us ran the Upper Eno, from Hillsboro to Few's Ford, coincidently also at 7'. The Upper Eno at 7' was not quite at flood stage, but it was at bank full and there were a number of trees in the water, including one that fell into the river in front of Richard Mann. None of the potential strainers were difficult to avoid, but you had to keep on your toes. Also, at this level, most of the eddys and crosscurrents were pretty squirrely. There were some nice Class II/III wave trains and some surfable waves. However, since this was an after work run, we had to haul buns down the river since the Eno River State Park takeout closes at eight o'clock.
Although none of the people I paddled with ran the Little River during this period, it was also at a runable level and it is usually a challenging river. It's Class III+ at normal levels, and Russ Condry says it is easily a Class V river at high water. Other options after local rains are the Upper Flat, and the Lower Eno.
Robert Martin says of the first run of the day on the Flat: As you can see from Joe Slater's photos (http://www.papadisc.com/ and click on "Pictures") the Flat was fully charged yesterday. As we stood at the low water bridge we could see the river rising. It was around 7 feet on the USGS gauge (Flat River@ Bahama). At this level the bridge is awash. The trip took 30 minutes. It was fast but not too furious. If the river was out west it would be considered a "Big Water" class II with one class II+ and two class IIIs. But this ain't the west. Because the river was at high water you could add one point to the difficulty making it a class III (IV). If you swim you add one more to the difficulty making it a class IV (V) swim. So even though it was not a technically difficult run the high water brings other factors into the equation that make it a dangerous run for beginners, novices or any inattentive paddler.
Richard Mann says of his run on the Upper Eno: One other hazard to consider that I had never given much thought is that of falling trees. At one point I had a HUGE tree fall into the river no more than 100' in front of my boat. The tree went all the way across the river, with the top landing on the opposite bank and in the river. The lower trunk was under water enough to not be a problem, but after that I was more concerned about trees than I was the rapids.