The Raven Fork is a beautiful class V+ tributary of the Oconaluftee river located just outside of the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina. Much of the run flows through the Great Smokey National Park on the border of Tenessee and North Carolina. The take out is on the reservation at the home of Emanuel, a great friend to the kayakers who come there.The scenery on the run is unbelieveable, and if you ever get the chance to look around and focus on anything other than the continuously steep pool drop rapids, you can really feel the natural beauty! REad more and check out some pictures from the run….
 
 
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A good fun minimal level on the Raven Fork is around 7 inches. Yesterday we drove to the Raven to find it at 6 inches. It has been run as low as 4- we weren’t going home without running something. It turned out to be well worth it.
The river is very chanellized-so it doesn’t take much water to make it runnable.
It was a big day, and NOT because of the WATER LEVEL, don’t get me wrong the drops are still very big- BUT it was the size of the GROUP that formed on the river that day that was BIG- 18 people on the Raven Fork! possibly a record. Suprisingly-no swims-and it was actually a lot of fun!
Another Big part of the day was the number of dudes firing up the “BIG BOY” Arguably the sickest drop in the southeast-looking really good at 6 inches to 6 brave souls. Some lines were good-some involved a rock at the bottom-and one was a massive boof that turned out good. Here is a pic of Fusilli about to Boof the S#%# out of BIG BOY FALLS> Also two pics of myself dropping the Big Boy.photos: Jay Gifford
    
  
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After Big Boy more great rapids-big fast dynamic slides all over the place! Mike Tyson’s Punch-out rapid was one of the favorites. So good I walked up and ran it twice. Great River Great group-can’t wait to go back!
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