Bear

I am a local paddler and paddled the Bear on April 30. The river was very high all weekend, but based on the Sheridan Street paddlers gauge, I believe it peaked on April 30. The high flow was the result of extremely heavy rains 4 days earlier and, unfortunately for us paddlers, won’t be a regular event. While I concur with the previous poster that the upper section was continuous, has only a few eddies, and could bruise up a swimmer, I respectfully disagree with the “Class IV creek run” statement. With the high flow there were significant wave trains and cross-directional waves in the upper, but the run is still very straight forward with only minimal maneuvering required. The only holes to punch are the manmade drops that were constructed as part of the course. All of these can be punched with enough forward momentum. We went through them in playboats without problem. For these reasons I’d call this run, at this water level, a solid III. It was definitely not a day for anyone not comfortable in fast water with waves from multiple angles, but, in my opinion, not class IV.

At lower, more typical water levels, the upper is II/II+ and the lower has class II drops interspersed with class I water. The biggest skill to have at lower water levels is the ability to deal with hitting rocks. All drops can be run directly through, but if you play in them a few are semi-retentive.

Cool that folks from Ann Arbor came up here to paddle. The park is a great gift to the few paddlers that live in this area and hopefully a lot of out of town paddlers will visit and enjoy it as well. Now is the time to come paddle it because at summer base flow this stretch of river is super boney. Happy paddling.