Wolf

This stretch is not as commonly paddled as the stretches just upstream and just downstream. Being within Menominee tribal land, before putting on, a trespass permit must be purchased from Big Smoky Falls Rafting (715-799-3359) or Shotgun Eddy Campground and Rafting (715-882-4461).

River guidebooks prior to the 1970's listed this section together with the next collectively as 'Section IV'. However, in 1988, the tribe reopened the river (after about a decade of total closure to non-tribal members other than for rafting traffic via two tribal outfitters) and began charging a 'trespass fee' which included shuttling boaters upstream from Big Smokey Falls. It became fairly standard for boaters to use the rafting put-in at Otter Slide, foregoing this stretch of river. Over time, boaters have come to use Section IV to refer only to that lower part of the river (from Otter Slide to Big Smokey), leaving this piece of the river to now be referred to as 'Upper Section IV'.

Anyone paddling this reach is likely to combine it with the next section for a long day of paddling on the full historic Secion IV (12.5 miles), or combining it with a short Section 3 trip, either using our listed Otter Slide take-out or shortening a bit by using Shotgun Eddy's campground. (Make arrangements with the outfitter when you purchase your permit to do the trip.) Or ... you could go for a really big day and do short 3, plus this run, plus the lower Section 4, for a total of 16 miles, getting all the best the river has to offer. (NOTE: there will be a stretch of four miles of dead-flat water surrounding the Otter Slide location.)

In the first mile of the stretch you reach a Class II boulder garden, Burnt Shanty Rapid. After another mile of flatwater, you'll enter Shotgun Eddy Rapids, a solid Cla

...