Eau Claire (Chippewa trib.)

This is a good basic run. The first half of the river is mostly low. Once the North Fork and South Fork converge, it gets a bit deeper and broader. Most of the rapids and rock gardens are on the second half of the trip. Put in is on Channey road on the west side of the bridge. Just follow the trail down to the river. If you want a shorter run or just to bypass the convergence, you can put in at the Donald L Eisberner Memorial off of Channey Road, which would cut the run almost in half. Take out is on the north bank just past the bridge on Highway G.

This river is best run at high water in early spring or just after a heavy rainfall. The takeout at Highway G is a good gage for water depth. Check the landing, if the water level is more than a foot below the last step, it's going to be pretty poor running. I ran this run in early June 2012 and the water level was extremely low. There was exposed sand at the landing so it was almost 2 feet below the last step. We ran it anyways as we were running with people that hadn't been in a kayak much. It was a good learning experience as we had to get in and out of the kayaks to get through some very low spots. Another 4 inches of water and it would have been completely runnable.