Lower Bear
Ben Taylor Road to top of Lake Combie: 8-9 miles, Class II
A low-stress, relatively scenic day trip fit for beginners to moderates. There's no shortage of public and private access points throughout, so expect a lot of gold panners and beachgoers on the shores of a sunny summer day. Take-out access is tricky: the Wild Iris Lane bridge is not accessible to anyone, as it is owned by Bear River Aggregates, a mining operation – and even the CDFW officer we spoke to said they won't return his calls regarding access. Further down, Lake Combie is also quite tricky (it's mostly private) but after our trip, a local told us that the end of Peaceful Valley Road has an access point.
Only rapids to speak of are in line with Bill Tuthill's description on CACreeks: Diagonal (II-II+) about 4mi after the put-in, and two unnamed II-II+ rapids about a mile and two miles after the Dog Bar Jim bridge.
We ran at 380cfs on packrafts and these were all super easy, no scouting necessary. No consequences or serious trap hazards anywhere on this section. CACreeks says the minimum is 200cfs, but I wouldn't want to paddle anything below this level.
NID has proposed building the 275' Centennial Dam above Lake Combie that would inundate this stretch of the Bear River. Learn more about the efforts to stop this dam
here.
_–Updated by AW member Dup Crosson, May 2020_
Other Information Sources:
CACreeks guide to Bear River, class 2 section.
Nevada Irrigation District controls the outflow from Rollins Reservoir and the diversion into Bear Canal.
NID's Public Relicensing Website FERC license #2266