Greetings and welcome!
We have a somewhat sunny but cool 45 degree day going on today. Yesterday’s rain has moved out and now we are getting the colder air behind the storm. There is a little rain possible Saturday afternoon and into Saturday night. It is cold enough that some could be snow, but none of it is more that scattered occasional showers.
This weekend is the Kosir’s/Rapids Resort Pesh Fest. Tonight they have a bluegrass band and tomorrow night they have some sort of rapper/hiphop entertainer. They have whitewater competitions on the river for paddlers and regular rafting trips. It should be a fun weekend for them.
The river peaked at or near the highest that I have ever seen it. My personal best was +54″ and it was within an inch or two of that. The dams downstream were open and really putting out a tremendous amount of water. Here is a video that one of the guys from Kosir’s put on Facebook last week. It is a couple of kayakers running the bottom of Horserace Rapid.
https://www.facebook.com/100004595735541/videos/630287635633739/
That is impressive stuff.
The river has fallen to more sane levels but is still at very high water. By my estimation it is at about a +32″ and it seems to be leveling out somewhat. They are going to have outstanding water for this weekend’s festivities.
It is really rare for the river to get up into the 50s. When it does it doesn’t stay there long. It gets so wide up into the woods that it can flush down the excess water in the watershed in a big hurry at 4,000CFS. With a watershed of about 450 square miles it doesn’t take long to drain it at 4,000CFS. For those that ran it that high, congratulations, you are officially legends. Most likely the next time that it happens you will be too old to paddle it. This is the second time since 1999 that I have seen it. The highest that I saw them run rafts was +48 and it was crazy. Anyway now that it is down to a more sane, but still very wild levels, paddlers are in for a great weekend on the river.
The Peshtigo is not the only river that got huge. The Pike and Menominee Rivers got huge too. The Menominee was beyond flood stage and there were warnings out for that river. It peaked at about 16,000CFS. The Pike is the river that most of the Marinette County waterfalls are on, and those should still be just roaring this weekend. A waterfall tour this weekend would be a great idea.
The frost coming out of the ground continued this week with mostly above freezing weather, but with the rain the ground did not dry out very much. There are still big puddles and soft spots on back roads. I was considering a ride up to the secret lake and camping/fishing spot today to see how that is coming along, but I am rethinking that until it dries up a little more. Some of the back roads are still pretty deep in frost-out mud.
I did see that Marinette County has lifted road weight restrictions south of Hwy X. There is a possibility that the town roads will still have restrictions for a while.
Wednesday night we were out driving right around sunset and the amount of deer out by the roads was just insane. In a six mile ride I know that I saw at least 30 deer in the ditches, and quite a few of them ran out in front of me. I understand why, that is the first green grass or anything else that they have had to eat since probably October. They start having fawns in about 3-4 weeks and they will want that nutrition. For now my speed limit in certain areas is 35mph or less. Once more of the world starts greening up they will be a lot less likely to be up by the roads. In the meantime watch out for deer. They are plentiful and skittish.
That’s about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB