Undisclosed Haw Tributary
| River: | Other |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 05/06/2024 |
Normally I’d be sharing full details on where we went today for the Paddler as a B-Sides. I’ve got a few more creeks that I’d like to check out before I write one specifically on the Haw drainage. This trip report is intentionally vague, because Shawn Murphy and I ran a micro creek that, although legal in terms of access, is probably not worth the hassle to deal with the nearby landowners. It is not my intention to tease, so if anyone is really interested, I’m happy to share information on where we went privately, but just be warned that you will not be welcomed and your run in might be unpleasant.
Water level was a good exploratory level, maybe 15-20 cfs below what I’d estimate as a good minimum. We had both on separate occasions scouted the first major rapid on foot previously. It is a 6 ft or so drop where the river left side, which gathers the most flow does not seem safe and the river right side has a narrow slot between a rock and the bank to squeeze through, dropping about a foot onto a large flat rock before dropping the rest of the way into the “falls”. We coordinated before running and scouting today on foot. Shawn would set up safety just after the drop with a rope and I would run the drop, eddy right and set up safety for his turn. I executed the drop almost as planned, but was a little too far right to get a proper boof stroke to style it. No worries, it was more forgiving than expected and I boogied on down.
When I passed Shawn, however, I looked up at the ridge to see two people filming me go through. Normally when I run into people on my micro creeking adventures, if people watch they are curious, but more in awe of what is happening. Today, the woman had an angry scowl on her face.
I caught an eddy and waited for her husband to come down to talk to me. He stated that we had no right to be on the creek and it was their private property. The land had been in their family for over a hundred years or something like that and it used to be a mill dam. I told him that I don’t plan on coming back out of respect for them, but they do not own the creek. I told him that we are not allowed to walk above the high water line, which can sometimes be difficult to determine, but from the road at the bridge to the creek was fair game. We both conceded that I wouldn’t blabber on about how awesome the creek is and how to get there and he conceded that yes, I was technically allowed to be there, but he didn’t want us to ever come back. “I’m not sure if you’re from this county, but people will shoot you out here, no questions asked”, he stated and “most people aren’t as ‘cool’ as we are.” I thought this was debatable, but I wanted to keep things civil so I didn’t push back. We continued to talk about how their main concern was our safety, which I brought up that really the safest thing would be for me to set up safety for Shawn since I wasn’t sure where he was at this point. If it sounds contentious as I write this, I can assure that it was civil once we talked it out a bit. Shawn caught up and I asked the landowner if there were any additional drops that we should be concerned about before the confluence with the Haw River. He said it just is really rocky and narrow and hard to squeeze through. This was really a description of the whole creek in general, but I thanked him and we moved on.
Luckily, we made our way down to the confluence without any further issues. It was almost continuous class II for another quarter mile or so with one drop reaching maybe class II+ today and III with higher water I suspect. The Haw was very tame and uneventful with the exception of one really cool kicker type boof rock just before the takeout.
Maybe there could be further discussions about a paddlers right to paddle a stream and how to balance this with also being courteous. This time, I think we were in the right, but maybe it’s not worth the hassle to go back. It really is a shame since rapids were of higher quality than your average micro creek in the area. This sort of thing happens from time to time I’ve heard, but this is the first time I’ve come across people actually angry with me for paddling a creek, so naturally I wasn’t fully prepared on the best way to manage. Ironically, had they left us alone, we would have been much safer than what happened with them confronting us despite them saying that that was their main concern. On the positive, Shawn and I had a great time and agreed that it would be a really fun creek to run again if we can figure out the landowner dilemma. It sort of reminded me of some of the other creeks that I’ve run lately that are more exciting such as Richland or New Hope or even the narrows section of the Rocky, which was also a questionable access.