Southern Fried Overflow

It was Thursday night. Matt and I were sitting at my house watching Golden Eye and we were about to head to the bar downtown. Before we left, I checked the rainfall data and noticed a huge spike in water levels. We didn’t go downtown. We started planning and organizing. At 2:30am, we left Columbia with the greatest of intentions and pointed west towards Brevard NC.

We arrived at Headwaters Outfitters at 6:00am and slept for about two hours in the car. We woke up at 8:30 and drove up the valley to the West Fork of the French Broad.

The West Fork was a lot of fun. There's 3 sizeable slides and a couple other easier rapids. It was our first time and we didn't have a guide, so it was pretty fun to do the ol read and run. We took some video, and I might upload it on here later if Matt ever gets around to editing it.

We arrived at the takeout around 11am and rallied down to Georgia to run Overflow Creek. This is one of the most classic creeks in the SouthEast. I like to compare it to the Green River Narrows, on crack. The foliage was amazing and had us all completely jaded from time to time.

Luckily we had a decent guide who had run it a couple times, but his descriptions of the lines were sparse at best. We made it down in one piece, and I'm so glad we were finally able to get on this Southern Fried Classic.

Dropping into Singley's Falls

Matt, running Hemlock Falls (I think) - this was a sketchy drop with several sideways and backwards descents. Luckily we got through it safely.

Matt and I at the Put-In

Some sweet little mini gorge that I dropped into blind. Such great scenery.

Overflow was run for the first time by a guy named Alan Singley, and he did it by himself. I think that man deserves a beer for that undertaking. Oh yeah, he did it about 30 years ago, before the invention of the modern creek boat. Thank you Mr. Singley.

It's been raining quite a bit here in the SouthEast. With the Green River Narrows Race quickly approaching, it's difficult to stay focused on dialing those lines in. I'm finally feeling more confident about my line over Gorilla and I'm getting really excited to go out and race this coming Saturday. Meet me at the Monkey!

(all photos by Rob Siegel)