Wisconsin
E) Stevens Point: Whiting Dam, Al Tech County Park (PnP, 0.6mi.)
March 24, 2012
Trip Report
| Reporter | Bryan Foster |
The county park is at a low head dam that is very dangerous.
Upstream a few yards are some waves that are surfable with eddy access on river left. You can even thrill yourself with some eddy line tricks. There is a small parking area (fisherman's parking) for 1 or two cars off west river drive at the waves. This of course requires a ferry across a fast flowing and wide wisconsin river in order to get to the waves.
Downstream is the low head dam that does have a path down the right side that is technically a runnable area and some class II waves/rapids below the dam (aka spillway).
I did this back in the summer of 2010 when the wisconsin gauge at Rothschild was at 5590cfs. see the pictures.
I also have heard a rumor of the center of the low head dam being run, as there is a kicker in the middle, I personally think it is not worth the risk to run the kicker or the right side of this dam as it looks to be an excessively dangerous recirculating killer of a low head dam. I would even estimate that it had a 4' height differential from the hole to the boil water when I was there.