As luck would have it, Terry and I caught the beginning of Topical Storm ‘Fred’ while we were out East last weekend.

With rain in the forecast, we had our hopes up of getting some natural flow on Sunday, but the weather wasn’t calling for anything too crazy just yet.   When we awoke at Levi’s hostel, we were informed that nearly 8′ of rain had fallen in the mountains.   Shortly thereafter, we realized just about everything was going to be off the charts high. After tossing around some idea’s, we decided to try a run that was new to all of us.  Prior to Sunday morning, I had never heard or read about Panthertown Creek, so I nervously packed up with Levi and Terry and we began making our way to the take out, me being very skeptical that it wouldn’t be crazy high-flows.  Levi assured me it was high enough in the watershed that it’d be a great option given the amount of precipitation that had fallen.

Upon arriving at the take out, it was clear the creek was pumping.  We met one of Levi’s buddied at the take-out and then proceeded to jangle our way to the put in.

After a 20ish minute hike downhill to the put in, we found ourselves putting on a small tributary that meandered through the rhododendron forest.  We floated a calm, but tight and overgrown section of flat water until it merged with Panthertown Creek.

From here, we were treated with a few miles of super fun slides, low angle slidey rapids and some beautiful scenery.  While Paul had done the creek in the past, we treated the run like a wilderness first decent ; scouting, setting safety, etc. The nature of the run was a whitewater kayakers paradise;  Big, fast, and relatively friendly for the most part.  It took us about 4.5 hours with 3 or 4 portages to get down to the bridge.

By the end of the run, we all couldn’t have been happier with the run we had just completed, and all agreed it’d be a neat one to get back into one day.

Enjoy,