 Upping the Ante (Con't) The Upper Upper Elk River Employees at Banner Elk, N.C.'s Edge of the World paddling shop have long known about the Upper Upper Elk River. After all, the put-in at the dam outflow of a local duck pond is only 100 yards from its doors. For the most part, however, they, and others of the hairball fraternity, have been content with the "mellower" Class V- run downstream on the Upper Elk. "From what I've heard, the Upper, Upper is pretty intense Class V+," says Clem Newbold, whitewater manager for Edge of the World. "No one's really ever ventured in there." Until now. Last April a group of three decided to see what all the fuss was about for themselves. "The run only took about 30 minutes of total paddling," says Boone, N.C.'s Spencer Cooke, who ran the 300-vertical-foot, mile-long section with locals Daniel De La Vergne and B.J. Johnson. "We scouted each rapid thoroughly, but it was still very chaotic, unpredictable and butt-clenching." The threesome found 250 cfs coursing through a 10- to 30-foot-wide streambed with three major rapids. The first rapid, says Cooke, which they christened Beyond Hope, is a 15-foot-wide, 40-foot-long stairstep slide littered with sideways-breaking holes that flipped two of them. The next rapid has two stair-stepping drops with a tight entrance and a triple drop move around an undercut. The final rapid features a sticky hole flanked by undercuts and branches. "We all took different lines," says Cooke, "and we all came out pretty clean. But it was a hairy run. There were lots of boulders, undercuts, trees, sieves and overhanging branches to deal with." The trio didn't name any of the drops, but Undercut, Tree-Clogged, Sieve Fest seems to have a nice ring. --edb
|
