Fires Creek, North Carolina, Advanced Early Spring Creek Run
Appropriate for: Advanced
Months Runnable: October-June or after rain
Difficulty: Class III+
AWA Numeric Points: 27
Gradient: 100 feet per mile average, ~200 on the upper section, 400 way up near the top
Runnable level: Min: 2' (~400cfs ) on Nantahala River gauge near R'bow springs, Max: Think seriously if it's much over 3'
Hazards: Very technical, long class III+ rapids, pinning potential, undercuts, deadfalls, and strainers.
Distance: 3 to 7 miles depending on flow
Distance from Atlanta: about three hours
Scenery: Amazing
Scouting: Possible from bank or eddies
Gauge: Nantahala river gauge near Rainbow Springs

Hopefully, this will make the April Eddy Line and y'all can think about doing Fires Creek during spring rainy season. Hopefully, there will be a spring rainy season. We were lucky, because a couple of years ago Will checked-out Leatherwood Falls near Hayesville and saw that it emptied into what appeared to be an interesting steep creek. So, when it rained late this February, he suggested trying it. It's amazing that even though Fires Creek serves a large watershed, runs alongside a road, and is popular with fishermen, horseback riders, and the locals, no one we knew had even heard of it. If you're the sort of paddler who does Little River in the Smokies, Big Snowbird near Joyce Kilmer, or western creeks like the Logan Fork, you need to give Fires Creek a try. If you're like Clay Noble and the Hawk and have taken-up paddling high performance catarafts like the Stinger, you'll find it "interesting".

Fires Creek is a narrow, technical, steep creek that parallels a forest service road, which allows easy road-scouting and extraction. There are no individual spectacular drops like Baby Falls, the Snake Trilogy, or the Upper Nanty's Cascades, but this puppy offers between 3 to 7 miles of virtually constant hard class III creekin' with only a few calm spots. We had to portage 4 deadfall/strainers, including one that had been intentionally cut to block the creek. None of these offered particular problems because we were able to catch eddies and portage, but you need to stay alert. There are also numerous areas with undercut drops. Again, they offered no particular problems.

There is no gauge on Fires Creek, so when contemplating the trip check the Nantahala River near Rainbow Springs gauge. It's on an adjoining watershed, thus is only approximate. If Fires Creek looks high enough at the bridge, it is, and if it looks too high...... In any event, go left on the signed road for about 2 miles to the picnic area. Leatherwood falls will be very obvious. This is the take-out (it also has a one-holer). It ain't worth it to take out much lower. You have your choice of put-ins and the road closely parallels the creek. The first is about 3 miles upstream. There is an obvious turnout that leads down to the road. It's the second turnout, not the first. If things are honkin', keep on going until the creek looks too small to run. Don't bother going much more than 6 or 7 miles above the falls, because it will keep getting smaller.

- Submitted by Bill Reeves.

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