Five days after running the Towaliga, I returned to the lower Piedmont, to run the Little River. It arises south of Social Circle and joins the Oconee in Lake Sinclair SW of Eatonton. Two descriptions of this river had come to my eye, the sketchy 1980 rundown in Sehlinger and Otey's Northern Georgia Canoeing (improved recently in the Welander revision), and a more detailed account done by Reece Turrentine for the old Browns Guide, later collected by Cherokee Publishing in 1986.

There is also a brief account by Will Reeves of the final three miles of the Little on the American Whitewater website. I'm describing a different section, about 8 miles, from the USFS put-in at the "296" bridge (AKA Glades Road) near the Big Indian Creek junction, down to the Hwy 16 bridge west of Eatonton.

Weather was breezy and cool when we found the putin, a drive-down at the NE corner of the bridge. The Little here has just emerged from miles of swampy land which help to stabilize the flow. I slid the Synergy down the bank and pushed off, while Ellie drove to Eatonton to hunt for signs of Alice Walker, Flannery O'Connor, and Uncle Remus.

Though the area was hilly, the brown current cut smoothly between high clay banks and river bottom forest. Big Indian Creek came in from the left, not quite runnable but adding a good deal of water. The Little was still narrow enough to be blocked by deadfalls. One required a short portage, the current being too brisk for parking against the log for a lift over.

The river bottom lasted for about a mile, until a low ridge appeared on the right, marked by a buried oil pipeline. The river zigzagged sharply, and spilled south over a fast, wavy chute. There were rock outcrops on the right, and signs of camping. Both sides of the river in this section, down to the next bridge, are owned by the USFS.

Though the hills drew closer, the Little resumed its river bottom character for another mile. Then there was another zigzag kink, the stream shoaling over a broken ledge with a twisting chute near the right bank. River bottom resumed for half a mile, ending in a sharp turn east, another kink SW, and another rapid. Three rapids in three miles, signs of old faults, par for the Piedmont. The river ran south, the forested hills close on both sides.

Martins Mill Road crosses at about the five mile mark. This is the end of the USFS canoe trail marked on the Oconee National Forest map. There I found two shoals which were easy to slip through at the day's generous water level. Beyond this point, the USFS no longer owns the right bank. However, after a couple of private cabins, I saw no more cabins, and not even any recent logging, for the next couple of miles.

There were no rapids for a while, either. The Little was broad and smooth, the hills drew back, and the forest tended to river bottom again. The winds had noticed me, and were wheeling to make problems. I chugged steadily down the flats, enjoying the isolation.

The Little turned SE for a mile, ran into the end of a ridge, and hinted at a riffle. Rocks were appearing again, and pines on the upslope. Weyerhauser triangles marked trees near the right bank. The north side remained in USFS hands. Weyerhauser will probably cut once more, and then sell their river land for development, unless the USFS can trade an outlying tract for it.

I knew from the map that I was nearing some more concentrated rapids. The stream turned south between the hills, and a broad, sloping series of broken ledges appeared. The water spread so thin that I stuck in one place; the best route might have been tending right of center where the chutes were deepest.

The Little smoothed and approached a striking series of granite outcrops on the right bank that forced the river aside. When it turned back SE, I saw the county pumping station on the left bank, and facing me, one of those big, wide, piedmont mill-dam rapids.

The day's good water was still not much when spread across almost an eighth of a mile of granite. With the "helpful" wind urging me on, I paddled across the top of the rapid to choose a course. The chutes at the top were shallow, not well aligned, and cluttered by the remains of the old mill dam. In the distance, the rapids necked down into better-defined chutes.

I picked a spot near the center and started zigzagging down, using small eddies along the way. The best choices tended right. After skootching down over trash rocks, I got a brief respite before the next drop. Then came another short break, and a rough sloping ledge with the best chute near the right bank.

A dog, from a house opposite the pumping station, had been running down the bank, barking and inviting me to just try and land to bail, but I had not taken much water. I peered back upstream behind a large island which had split away about a quarter of the stream on the left side. No run there. The river narrowed, the rapids got small, and Glady Creek entered on the left. Like Big Indian Creek, Glady is a large tributary, but it looked too trashy to be runnable.

Turrentine wrote that the pumping station can remove a significant amount of water here. He made his run at a painfully low level, when pumping might have made a difference. I had a much better water level, and could not detect any diminution.

In the final mile, I passed giant brick columns which once supported a railroad trestle. Turrentine wrote that a portage could be needed over the remains of the trestle, but at this water level, I did not see any ironwork at all. Maybe it has been cleared out by the river since Turrentine's run back in 1981.

The take-out is on a sand and gravel bar on the left bank just upstream of the Hwy 16 bridge. There is a rough car track beginning at the SE end of the bridge grade. We were able to drive most of the way down in our Outback, though not under the bridge due to a patch of rocks past our ground clearance.

What about downstream? Turrentine refers to "somewhat flat and cluttered water for the next 2.5 miles" from the Hwy 16 bridge down to the Glenwood Springs Road bridge. Just below that bridge is a broken-out dam which can be run, a run out rapid, and then a mile to Hwy 129 with a lot of sand shallows and no more rapids. Sounds like the 8 miles I ran is the best of it.

Let's discuss the Little River and the Murder Creek gauges, which are listed right next to one another on the USGS site. The Little River gauge is 356 feet above sea level, with a 262 square mile watershed. Murder Creek's gauge is at 380 feet above sea level, with a 190 square mile watershed. This might give the impression that one could expect more water on any given day for the Little River run I have described. But note: this is very misleading because the Murder Creek gauge is right at the usual put-in, while the Little River gauge is near Hwy 16, at the take-out below the mill dam rapids. For Murder Creek, what you see (on the gauge) is what you get, while on the Little River, one of the biggest creek tributaries, Glady Creek, does not enter until after the steepest rapids. This means that you should not regard the Little River as being "bigger" than Murder Creek.

So, if you go after either of these runs, I recommend at least 200 for a Murder Creek run, with 250 better; and at least 250 for the Little River, about what I had that March day. Or you could just go to Eatonton and dig Uncle Remus.

by Gary DeBacher
March 18, 2005.

From The Eddy Line, Sept. 2006

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