25th Lazy Beaver Race
When you see this rusty, old deckless iron bridge, you are about a mile from the Granite Avenue canoe landing in Reedsburg, the Lazy Beaver finish line. The bridge was originally built in the 1800s and was part of the bridge that spanned the Baraboo River in downtown Reedsburg. When the Main Street bridge was replaced, this section was moved to this site, providing better access to a now-abandoned farm on the north side of the river. The bridge deck was removed decades ago.
by Jeff Seering
The 25th annual Lazy Beaver Canoe and Kayak Race is now just 3 days away on Saturday, July 26. The river conditions this year, are to say the least, interesting. The river levels have been yo-yoing since the spring.
On Friday, July 18 I made the trip from LaValle to Reedsburg in my kayak, taking along a handsaw and clippers to ease my way through jams and to prepare that section of the river for the race. The week before the LaValle river gauge red 5.98 feet, which has been fairly typical the past two summers, though several inches lower than the Baraboo typically was the first several years of the Lazy Beaver.
Then on Wednesday, July 16, the area received several inches of rain and the river came up two feet by Friday. That made it a little too high with too much current for me to take along a chainsaw on a jam clearing trip. It’s a safety issue for me. Using the chainsaw in a river in normal conditions is somewhat scary to me.
The Friday trip was a breeze. The current was strong, particularly in the stretch from LaValle to the Highway 33 bridge, but I generally had clear paddling. I did some clipping and sawing of branches to clear openings. With two feet of extra water, I cruised for most of the paddle, though I did do some cutting through two downed trees in the river near Reedsburg.
It’s been a bad year for mosquitoes around here and I took along some bug repellant. I never used or needed it. For some reasoner me the Baraboo has been pretty bug free through the years. I don’t know why. I had one deer fly briefly buzz me the whole trip.
As far as wildlife on this trip, I saw a lot of wood duck broods, one eagle, some kingfishers and a heron but no deer, which is unusual. With the river being a little high, I did not bump into any unseen underwater obstacles this trip. I do advise wearing a life jacket on the Baraboo because it is deep in spots and you can paddle into underwater obstacles that can throttle your boat.
As the river comes up, it goes down. By Saturday morning the Baraboo was down a foot from when I paddled it Friday afternoon. It could be down to around the 6 foot level by the time of the Lazy Beaver. So I’ll take another trip down the Baraboo later this coming week to assess jams and clear them the best I can before the Saturday race.
