Flambeau – Hervas Landing to Beaver Dam Landing (4.9 miles)

Difficulty	II
Length	5 mi
Avg Gradient	9 fpm
Gauge	Flambeau River Near Bruce, Wi
Flow Rate as of 36 minutes	972 cfslow runnable
Reach Info Last Updated	May 27, 2010

River Description

Note: Many river-guide books describe the Flambeau and it's upper branches, often dividing the various reaches differently. A multitude of alternate landings exist, allowing trips of varying lengths, depending upon priorities (time and interest in maximizing whitewater versus flatwater paddling).

The main drops on this reach are:

Cedar Rapids (class II): an island splits the river. Usual route is the left channel, where a ledge offers several chutes for choice of run. Rock gardens follow. The next couple miles contain the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pitches of Cedar Rapids, all of which are several hundred yard long boulder-bed style rapids.

Beaver Dam Rapids (class II+): the biggest drop on the river (a 4' river-wide ledge, with huge boulders) merits scouting to pick a clear path. A brief boulder garden follows.

A major drawback of sectioning the river as we have here is that the access points listed are on opposite banks of the river, and it is a long way to the nearest bridge to make the loop around the river.

River Features

Put In

Distance: 0 mi

Access Point

Drainage: 1800 sq.mi.

Distance: 0 mi

Other

Drainage area at the listed put-in for this section is 1800 square miles (as calculated by USGS Streamstats V4.3.11).

USGS gauge for 'Flambeau near Bruce' lists drainage area of 1860 square miles. (Interestingly, Streamstats comes up with drainage at that location as 1890 square miles, about a 1.6% difference.)

Actual flow at the put-in *could be* (on average) about 95% the flow on the gauge.

(Divide gauge flow by 20, then subtract that from gauge reading).

We have not bothered to create a virtual gauge because there are three dams between this section of river and the gauge location. (The relatively minor difference in drainage area is generally not as consequential as the regulation by the dams is likely to be.)