Linville River (Pineola to Crossnore – Not the Gorge)
| River: | Other |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 12/28/2024 |
This is a section of river that I’ve had my sights on for some time now. My sister and brother in law had been looking at mountain houses for a rental property for a while in Watauga county so I’ve been studying the map of the area to see what might be in my comfort level, class 2-3ish. This section of the Linville River seemed to be the right gradient to fit and recently has been added to American Whitewater. Nathan Anderson has posted a few videos on it, which were very helpful for me to study what I might be up against.
American Whitewater covers pretty well the beta one might need to do this, but I’ll give a few highlights from a central NC paddler’s perspective. I had a water level on the USGS gage for Linville River at 2.3 ft. The gage is something like 23 miles downstream, past the gorge, so I’m unsure how helpful this is. Creeks that we drove by were running higher than normal with few rocks showing, but not flooded and the river was what I would maybe consider minimum for a whitewater trip. A few more inches, however, would have been perfect for a first time. With very few exceptions, I could paddle without needing to exit my boat and the steep sections were flowing well for a technical challenge. The shuttle was easy and quick just along Hwy 221 between Crossnore and Pineola, NC. There was one portage for a downed tree and debris from Hurricane Helene was seen throughout, mainly in the first mile.
After the mild first mile, you enter a sort of mini gorge, where the steepest gradient of this section is found. After a few ledges and wavy water, you encounter a 5-6 ft ledge with a clean boof river right. There was a nice pool to land in and plan your route since the next half mile or so was stacked pretty heavily with a maze of technical rapids, at least from a central NC paddler that is. The rest of the trip was fast flowing and decent rapids with a few sections of flat or easy rapids, more similar to what I’m used to back at home.
There was another portage towards the end around Sloop Dam, a low head dam that pools water for maybe a half mile or so. One neat drop was just before the takeout that was a sloped ledge into some fun waves. The trip lived up to what I hoped it would be and while I’m not familiar enough with other rivers in the area to compare it to in terms of quality, I thought it was great and will probably go back sometime. The 4.6 miles took about an hour and a half to run in my Aire Spud. I’d love to hear other paddlers perspectives on how this section compares to other rivers in the area, but at the very least this is an approachable section of the Linville for those of us who may never get on the wild section people think of that is several miles downstream. I saw several sections of likely easier, but interesting rapids even further upstream that I may need to check out in the future.