Flat River (Upper)

Gregory Moon and I ran the upper part of the Flat River. Level was just under 5 ft on the gage, which rivers.run considers high flow. Visually, it didn’t seem high or even close to flood level, but the current was strong. There were some logs floating around, but not such that it seemed like too high of risk. What we had rapids wise was some of the most exciting river running I’ve done in the triangle, not far behind my personal favorite, New Hope Creek. We ran from the North side of the bridge on Hwy 501, putting in on the South Flat River. This section was mostly swift flat water, winding its way by backyards that border the river until the first rapid just before the confluence with the North Flat where there is an easy class II where an island splits the flow.

From the confluence, there was more swift flat water until we reached the site of the old Harris Mill, which offered a nice class II ledge with some good play waves that we surfed a bit. Following this drop, there were more boulder garden type drops mostly class I-II with the occasional reaching class II+ boogie waves before we reached the flat water that marks the site of the busted dam at Moores Mill.

We got out of the strong current at the busted dam to scout. At our level most of the drop was too risky with the strong hydraulic below, but I found a spot far left that didn’t have a big boil line. The plan was that if I did get sucked in, I’d have to swim to the bottom of the river and hope that my boat would get spit out and I’d catch it downstream. Greg set up for safety in case I were to miss my boof and I ran the drop with Greg joining me once he saw I wasn’t going to get pulled into the hydraulic. We continued on through some class III boogie until passing the Moores Mill Rd for the last bigger drop. I flipped halfway through the drop just below the bridge, but rolled up luckily and Greg cruised right through without issue. A couple more II+ drops before it mellowed out with mostly class II and the occasional class II+. Our last stop was river left at the Deep Creek drop, also called Rock Fork Branch on some maps. The water was high enough that it was not worth the portage to run down, but we played a bit in the current. We then proceeded downstream to run the last rapid before taking out at Red Mountain Rd.

I had run this stretch from the busted dam down to the Lower Flat put in previously at 2.4 ft on the gage and it was a blast with some scrapey areas, but at 5 ft, we had some really good whitewater that I’d definitely recommend to those who haven’t run this section. I will mention that the current at the busted dam was strong even 100 ft or so above the drop, so one should be mindful of this when scouting and ready to walk around it if it doesn’t feel right. I would consider the drop one that is necessary to scout from shore rather than boat scout from a safety perspective. Parking at Red Mountain Rd wasn’t the greatest, but it is manageable if you have 4WD and park before the bridge river right where it goes downhill. The benefit of parking here is it avoids about 2 miles of flat before reaching the low bridge that people use to put in on the lower part of the river to going to Lake Michie.