Savage

Steve Ettinger.

The first 6.5 miles, down to the bridge at Westernport Road in Merrill, is a real delight. We were also accosted at the put in by one of the land owners, who warned us not to put in from his property. His complaint is that DNR refused to stock the river, so in retaliation he is barring access to everyone. But his neighbor across the road, by the commercial place, was away, and he expressed no views about our putting in there, so we did.
The run is mostly class II, with a few spots low class III. Then, about 2/3 of the way through, we came across the class V, which is not too hard to spot in advance (there is a big eddy above it, and a huge boulder in the middle guarding the first drop). It was quite a treat watching Sean Chapelle run it, so smoothly that it almost made the rest of us feel that we could handle it too. He entered on the left, caught an eddy quickly on the right, boofed sideways over the big drop, and turned sharply to slip between the undercut wall and the roostertail. The rest of us portaged various distances on the right. Our flow was 300 cfs at Barton, which was fine for most of the trip, but actually a bit low towards the end, where the creek widens out -- plus the level was dropping, as we were moving more slowly than the water.