Wisconsin Canoe Company

05/01/2025

Just in time for paddling season, I've got our new dashboard up and running! I'm pretty proud of this one.

The goal was to have a more holistic view of what's happening (or going to be happening) on the river. Water levels are a big part of it, of course, but that's far from the only factor. When designing this one, I was able to pull in quite a bit more data than we used to have and added a significantly better scoring system - now with weights!

We're now pulling in real time water levels from the PDS dam, water temperatures from Muscoda, the predicted CFS in Arena courtesy of the National River Forecast Center, the local weather forecast, and even our own inventory levels as a proxy for crowd score. The real magic is in the scoring algorithm which dynamically weights the various inputs to create a single paddling conditions score i.e. when water levels cross a flooding threshold, they are weighted significantly higher than at normal levels - crowds don't matter when the flow rates are dangerous.

Our conditions page is the 2nd most visited place on our website so hopefully quite a few of you will find this more helpful than what we had. And if you have any suggestions or find a bug, let me know!

-Ryan

https://thebestcanoecompanyever.com/conditions

08/07/2024

Oof, this summer just keeps kicking a guy when he’s down! That widespread rain storm Monday night pretty well saturated the entire watershed and we’re about to see its effect flow into our section of the river starting Thursday evening into Friday morning.

Long story short, as of this Tuesday night update, river forecasts are still calibrating as the upstream gauges start picking up the increased CFS from rain storm runoff. I think the current river forecast for this weekend (showing 16,500 as I write this) will be revised down. This high water will impact trips occurring Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with a very quick return to normal thereafter. We’ll make a final determination on officially cancelling trips 36 hours before your trip starts. Refunds for overnight trips will be offered regardless of the final water level, but I fully expect we will allow overnight trips to go out with the understanding that it’ll be tight quarters on the limited sandbars available.

07/08/2024

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve sent one of these updates. But, as many of you might have guessed with all of the rain and flooding, it has been an absolutely brutal start to the year for us. It’s nearing mid-July and up until now our sandbars have been underwater more than they’ve been above water. To give you an actual number to go by, we’ve put out 18% of the trips we’d normally have done at this point in the year, or in other words, for every 100 reservations, 72 of them were canceled. This is by far the worst start we’ve had in 15 years.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, however! The forecast has dried up, our record amounts of water have started coming down rapidly, sandbars are freshly washed, and we’ll be running normally again by this weekend. Statistically, July and August are dry with tons of sandbars so I’m hoping to finish out the summer strong and make up for lost time - which brings me to the main point of this update:

Buy a gift certificate of any amount this week (ending on July 12 @ https://thebestcanoecompanyever.com/gift-certificates) and two things will automatically happen:

1) You’ll get a 15% discount
2) Your gift certificate will never expire.

While we’d love to see you sooner rather than later, you could theoretically buy 10 years of discounted canoe camping trips - these gift certificates come as an account number that is transferable and can be used multiple times. If you want to share this with your friends, that'd be cool too.

Lastly, I’d like to thank you all for everything you’ve done for us. From those that have brought their friends year after year, to Bill that came out that one time nine years ago - you’ve all contributed to this project that started as a guy in a van down by the river and I’m truly thankful for where you’ve allowed me to take it.

Looking forward to getting you back on the river! -Ryan

05/19/2022

First trip of the year! And only minimal whining. Mostly from dad.

04/19/2022

18 spots available for a *FREE* guided climbing day at Devil's Lake on Tuesday, April 27th, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM.

Students in our AMGA Single Pitch Instructor course need mock clients to demonstrate their skills and complete their exam. This will be a normal climbing day, where instructors set up routes appropriate to client abilities and create a fun, challenging climbing day. All equipment is provided.

***Trip now full. Thanks everyone stay tuned for future opportunities!***

We have 18 spots available for a *FREE* guided climbing day at Devil's Lake on Tuesday, April 26th, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM.

Students in our AMGA Single Pitch Instructor course need mock clients to demonstrate their skills and complete their exam. This will be a normal climbing day, where instructors set up routes appropriate to client abilities and create a fun, challenging climbing day. All equipment is provided.

To prevent no-shows, we ask for a $50 deposit to hold your place. We will refund all those who show up; if you sign up and don't show, you lose your deposit.

Sign up below, first-come, first-served. Thanks!

https://www.devilslakeclimbingguides.com/store/spi-assessment-climbing-day

01/27/2022

Always more work than it's worth, but it does keep the kids occupied for 20 minutes

01/11/2022

Phenomenal lake ice this year!

12/15/2021

After a tragic sledding accident, I regretfully say goodbye to my favorite pair of Arc'teryx demo bibs having survived 13 long seasons of questionable decision making. You will be missed.

12/07/2021

If anything can be considered herding cats, it's taking toddlers mini golfing

10/22/2021

Getting wild and wet on the North Fork of the Flambeau last weekend!

09/10/2021

Stanley was officially put out to pasture today. He now lives in the depths of an old rock quarry with several hundred of his truck brethren. Best bus we've ever had!

07/31/2021

For perspective on what high water looks like for us: these 3 images are at normal summer levels (6kcfs), our 'not recommended' threshold (15kcfs), and all trips cancelled no matter what (20kcfs). This all happens within 2' of water level changes so inches make a big difference.

Now you know why we tell you to plan to get cozy sharing sandbars if you're heading out when it's 'not recommended'