Bank Waves

Width: 30'-50' Length: 100'-200'

Sloping bedrock create surfable waves: the first two are often catch-on-the-fly, while the wider bottom wave has a river-left eddy for repeat play.

Tame play is possible from 250-500 cfs. The bottom wave builds quite nicely from 500-1600+ cfs, providing wonderful surfs.

At high flows, outflow heads into a steep sometimes brushy river-left shore as the creek bends to the right. (Good paddlers, upright in their boats, should be easily able to stay clear of danger. Weaker paddlers, or anyone upside down or out of their boat may be at great peril of entangling with this shoreline and any woody debris.)

A large river-right eddy exists, but you cannot access the final wave from it ... you would need to ferry across to the river-left eddy.

At flows 1800-2000 cfs and higher, Bank Waves (and nearly all other playable waves) tend to wash out. The whole run will be a risky freight-train of a ride. (If this creek is flowing that high, there are better, safer things to paddle in the area.)

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The state DNR issued an edict that all dams (of a certain size/class) must be able to pass the 0.2% chance flood (most often totally wrongly labeled 500 years flood"). The city has renovated the gates in the millrace, and operates them whenever flows are elevated. Water in the millrace returns into the pool below the bottom wave, raising the pool, and diminishing mainstream flow, washing out the bottom wave. As a result, what had been one of the two best playspots on this run, is now often absent.

NOTE: Back when these features were named, the buildings at river-left were the Cedarburg State Bank. Some years back, that became part of BMO Bank. That recently closed, and it now appears this is a medical clinic. At least for the present, we will keep the name in honor of the many years when the building housed banks.