Wausau Whitewater Park

 

The premier whitewater park in Wisconsin, (and one of the finest, if not the best, in the Midwest) this place is an absolute pleasure chock full of paddling camaraderie.  

Class Difficulty:
Class I-III+

Gradient:
45' per (.3) miles (Approx.)

Gauge: There is no gauge per se, since the course lies in a side channel of the Wisconsin River below the dam in downtown Wausau. Recreational releases are held one weekend a month (Saturdays and Sundays). In theory, the course could be run after a hard, long rain but it’s probably best to wait for the scheduled releases.

Put-In:
Just upstream of the RR bridge.
Take-Out:
After the last drop, just before the channel joins the main stream of the Wisconsin River.

Miles Paddled: .3 Miles
Time worth driving to: 3-4 hours

This has been on my to-do list for years. I had a wedding to attend (actually, I officiated it) in Wausau and stayed at a hotel literally two blocks from the park (How cool is that? I could walk from the hotel door to my paddling destination… like any good reverend). I'd make the trip from Madison again though, because the park is totally worth the drive.

The history of how the park came to be can (and should) be read on the official website. What’s relevant and historically interesting is that, while now (and likely forever more) dammed, this spot on the Wisconsin River used to be a gnarly whitewater section. Before Wausau was named Wausau (well, by the European settlers’ standpoint at least) it was dubbed Big Bull Falls. The word “bull” is an Anglicization of the French Canadian word bulle, which meant rapids. Wausau became a settlement due to the rapids providing a great place to have a mill for the seemingly endless supply of lumber in the nearby northwoods.

As is true almost everywhere on the Wisconsin River, particularly in the north, the rapids that brought (white) people to settle, led to the poor rapids being hidden and harnessed for mills and then hydroelectric power. The once wild Wisconsin is now tamed but there’s at least a small glimmer of it can be found here and there and Whitewater Park in Wausau gives you a glimpse. Mind you, the park is built upon a narrow side channel, not the mainstream of the river itself but that’s of little matter. The side ...more