River Report: Cane Creek thru Fletcher, NC

Length of Run:

5 miles (we guess)

Rating of Difficulty:

Class I-II

River Level:

NO GAUGE... at least we can't find one online

Scenery:

Location:

Located in Fletcher, North Carolina

Directions to Put in:

From Asheville: Take Highway 25 south toward Hendersonville. Turn left at Howard Gap Road, at the intersection with a Dollar General & Goodwill in a shopping center. The park is about a half mile down this road on the left. The river is on the right side of the park.

Directions to Take out:

We took out at the park near the airport, on the French Broad River. Go past the airport, go around the big curve and take the next right. The park entrance is directly on the left. Follow the gravel road down the park to a nice concrete boat ramp.

Description & Trip Log:

Your welcome! No problem. Don't mention it. Hey, we really do appreciate all the thank you's' that we should get for subjecting ourselves to this creek. And to think that that last section of French Broad River we paddled was mucky and nasty...

Ok this river started off not so bad. sort of shallow, but rarely scraping. You go the length of Fletcher Park, and go under a bridge which is Howard Gap Road. The river is nicely wooded, slow moving, kinda pretty. Right before you get to the Highway 25 bridge, there is a nice little class 2 waterfall that will knock you around a little bit. Probably a fun little rapid at higher water. Either way, that is the end of the fun. From here on out, you will feel like a turd that just got flushed.

This was the nastiest river we have ever paddled. Saying that this river smells bad is being way too gracious. You can actually taste the smell, it coats your lungs so bad that you can actually go as far as saying that the coal miners in the olden days actually had the good life with that black lung or whatever it was called. Disgusting.

There is a couple portages to be on the lookout for and a number of fallen tree & branch strainers that you will run right into and be coated with spider webs and all kinds of things. The waterfall is probably the only class 2 on this stretch of river, but there are a few semi quick moving sections to be alert for.

With that said, seeing the French Broad River is like Jesus Christ himself given you the golden key to heaven, complete with a big ceremony and everything. Disgusting.

But like I was saying to begin with. You are very very welcome for never having to ponder if this river is runnable. Sadly, it is. We seem to have absolutely the only accounting of this river being paddled on the entire internet (and obviously for darn good reasons). If you have ever had the hankering to paddle Cane Creek, let this be fair warning!