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| GORILLA: photo Drew Refshauge |
There is a jewel in western North Carolina, whose scenery is beaten only by the quality of its
whitewater. I’ve heard that the Green Narrows is the steepest dam-released river in the United States.
Whether that’s true, I’m not sure, but it seems reasonable. The 2.9 mile long, class V+ section,
has a maximum gradient of 350 feet per mile, and is at least as steep as they come in Dixie.
Almost equidistant from Asheville, N.C. and Spartanburg, S.C., the Green is a creeker’s dream.
Its dam-released nature guarantees almost consistent water every day of the year.
Couple that with its proximity to those fine southern towns, and it’s not hard to see why
the Green produces some of the country’s best paddlers.
It’s April, and my lifelong friend Drew Refshauge is my guide for the day. I’ve resolved not to
run two of the big three falls today, Go Left and Gorilla, but plan to run just about everything
else.
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| Drew using his hands in Gorilla |
We launch into the crystal cool waters. The sky is concealed by a lush green canopy overhead.
She’s running at 200%, a great level for most of the rapids, but also a level that creates some
big holes and rules out running a few of the nastier drops for me. The first rapid comes quickly.
Frankenstein is a class V move around a sieve and over a small double drop that wakes you up for
what’s ahead. Shortly after that, the first of the big ones arrives. Go Left is a slide through a
very tight slot, preceded by a six-foot drop. It is home to a lot of carnage and is considered
one of the big three. I’m running the sneak today, where a small drop leads to a tight slot of its
own on river right and an eight-foot drop.
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| Glen Laplante in Go Left: photo Drew Refshauge |
After some rockin’ boogie water, Zwicks is the next entrée on the menu. The key to running
this rapid is punching a sticky little hole under a three-foot drop, while setting up for a slide,
that if you don’t stay hard right on will flush you into the nastiest of holes. A trip to the hole
almost definitely results in a swim. Chief, the most dangerous rapid on the river is directly under
Zwicks, providing even more incentive to clean this one.
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| Mike in Boof or Consequences: photo Drew Refshauge |
Chief is not a hard move, but requires a must-make boof over a boulder where half of the water
flows back up and under the drop. Getting endered here has unfortunately resulted in at least
one death over the past few years.
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| Gorilla size boof |
By now the anticipation of running Gorilla is thick, but there are a few moves yet to come.
First is Pencil Sharpener. Then there's the Notch, a three-foot wide slot funneling the entire river
at an awkward angle around an undercut boulder. This move is absolutely essential in positioning
yourself for the immediate Gorilla, an eighteen-foot drop into a narrow strip of water.
This drop’s namesake is credited to some of the Green’s pioneers saying that ‘whoever was going to
give her first would have to have balls the size of a gorilla.’ This adrenaline-inducing drop
is the prettiest drop on the river, and if one succeeds in hitting the line and sticking the fall,
one will still have to take a full-on blow, hitting Speedtrap, a rapid which steals all momentum
from the previous drop in an instant. I portage and take the ten-foot seal launch into the
river a few feet above Scream Machine. I aim for the eight-foot drop on the right to avoid the
runnable, but gnarly curling slide on the left that leads into a sticky hole. From there, the
line leads over Powerslide and Rapid Transit, very fast, long slides, also funneling into big holes.
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| Mike hitting his groove: photo Drew Refshauge |
I ponder running Groove Tube because of its unique ability to smear a boater’s face into a rock wall.
It’s about a twelve-foot drop with a thin line through a curler. If the paddler fails to take a
hard left stroke right at the curler, he is quickly hurled into a rock wall on river left. I hit
the line, overboofing a bit, and in an instant I am upon Sunshine. I eagerly eddy out. Sunshine is
considered one of the toughest of the rapids on the Green, the last of the big three. When the
water is running 100%, there is a must-make move. A hard stroke onto the rock on river right will
land you in a swirling eddy, avoiding a rock ledge. A straight line off this drop will land you
directly onto that rock ledge twelve or more feet down, ensuring definite back misery, if not a
displaced vertebrae or two. I have heard of broken backs and season-ending injuries here.
When the river is running 200%, as it is today, the water cushions the ledge enough where you can
run directly over the top of the drop. That’s what we do, and its roller-coaster speed carries us
over the drop and through the quasi-slot at the base. The bulk of the Green is behind us, and I
breathe a sigh of relief.
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| Mike's hidden paddle in Sunshine: photo Drew Refshauge |
One of the best things about this river is that the next mile is nothing short of class IV drops
and boogie water. It contains many drops that were they to be placed on numerous other rivers would
be considered major rapids. This section is especially fun for me because I’m thankful for having
survived the upper section and can relax with some fun water yet to come.
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| Hands on Green experience |
The last major rapid before the takeout is Hammer Factor. This is a very fun rapid.
Water peels off a right-sloping rock into a heavily undercut wall on river right.
Running too far left will ironically send you down the slide into the undercut on the right.
At 100% level, even if run poorly, a boater is flushed through without incident.
Two-hundred percent, however, creates a hole that promises a much unwanted rodeo session.
I aim for a center-to-left line with enough momentum to carry me through the hole.
It works, and I have completed my fifth run down the Green.
The magic of the Green stems from the fact that it runs all the time.
When you have class V+ rapids running year-round in your backyard, it propels you exponentially
to the next level, providing a springboard to running the harder stuff in the area like the
Cullasaja or Ravens Fork, not to mention creating an unequalled camaraderie between paddlers.
The guys like Drew that run the Green on a daily basis are damn good, but always excited about
taking a neophyte down their home waters.
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