Namekagon River, Dam to Phillipi Landing (10.9 miles)

In my opinion, this is the most fun part of the Namekagon! There are multiple runs of Class I rapids on this section, making it thr most challengingsection too.  The day I did this section, the water was on the verge of low, and I have also paddled it in lower water, shoving the boat through sticky parts, and higher water where you can sail right through.

The put in for this section is at the Namekagon Dam. The river starts out calmly, through forests with spruce, arbor vitae, pine and some deciduous trees. About a mile in there is a cabin on the right, and you can see the remains of a foobridge thwt the National Park Service map references. It is st this point that the fun begins, with 7-10 rapid runs in 5 miles. One just has to pick the right route and not hit rocks! There are two other footbridges on this setion, one near a second cabin.

After County M, the river calms again and it isn’t far between bridges/landings. There is one last set of rapids halfway between Cap Creek Landing and Phillipi Bridge Landing. It leads into a quaint, dark lowland evergreen forest thwt I really enjoyed going through.

This portion of river didn’t provide much wildlife viewing, despite being the busy time of year. I did see 2 merganser pairs together, a muskrat, kingfisher and sandpiper. A bright highlight along the shore was the buttercup/marsh marigold.

Click to access Namekagon-Map-1-2011.pdf

 

Last paddled May 14, 2017