West Branch Montreal Whitewater Survey

This survey is designed to collect historical information on runs prior to 2006. If you have run the river this year please report your run by proceeding to the 2006 Report Your Runs Survey.

American Whitewater and the Wisconsin Hoofers Outing Club, with assistance from the Rivers & Trails Program of the National Park Service, are working to identify the range of preferred whitewater boating flows on West Branch Montreal River. Xcel Energy manages Gile Flowage which provides water to their Saxon Falls Hydroelectric Project and Montreal Hydroelectric Project downstream. Gile Flowage is a storage impoundment and not a licensed project, but paddlers are interested in obtaining more accurate information on preferred flows with the goal of determining the potential for a scheduled flow release.

We have developed this survey for runs prior to 2006 to collect available historical knowledge of flows on the West Branch Montreal. Our goal is to utilize information from the survey to help us identify a flow preference curve for whitewater boating, which will identify minimum, acceptable, and optimum flows.

Please pass along the word about this survey to fellow boaters. If you have friends who have paddled the West Branch Montreal, please refer them to this webpage. The more responses we get the more useful our results will be. We will publish results of this survey for the benefit of paddlers with an interest in recreational opportunities on this river.

Before you start this survey review any notes you have of dates or flows when you've run the West Fork Montreal.