Rivers for Packrafting in the Southeast

[Bryce Nerland]

I am planning a packrafting trip on the Chattooga River at the beginning of October. I seems to be one of the few rivers in the southeast that is well suited for packrafting. The Chattooga River trail provides a route to backpack out at the end of the float. I am wondering if anyone is aware of other rivers in the southeast where packrafting would be possible.

[Michael Davis]

I just rafted the whitewater section 4 (south of Hwy 76 near Clayton Ga.) this summer in a 4 person raft.

What part of the Chattooga were you packrafting?

[Bryce Nerland]

My plan is to do whatever parts of sections 1-3 that are runnable. From the reports I’ve seen, it looks like section 3 is the only section of those that is currently high enough to be runnable. The reports also say that section 4 is runnable right now, however, I’ve never been to that part of the river and dont know of any trails to hike out as I had hoped to do. Any advice?

[Roman Dial]

My son and I did the French Broad and it was great fun. We ran it two in one Alpacka as I brough a fuel bottle cap and not the valve cap so we both jumped in one boat with two paddles. We ran it all, including the last class IV — but dumped in the hole at the bootom of that.

You can run most rapids in a packraft that you do in other boats up to class III without much problem.

As for combining hiking and rafting (real packrafting) my hunch is that the good stuff is going to be creeking in the Smokies (Class IV+) and will require good boating skills, best developed by running the standard rivers in your packraft to get comfortable with the boat.

[Author]

Posts