U-Park Shoals and U-Park Ledge ("UPL")

Beginning about 0.5 - 0.6 miles from your put-in, the river-right bank largly clears of trees to become a grassy slope. You'll see the lightposts high up river-right in the U-Park ( U niversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Park-and-Ride lot). This boulderbed shoals (class I riffles and rips) leads around a sweeping right-hand bend for roughly 1/4 mile. At some flows there are a few fine catch-on-the-fly shallow-dished waves to surf. There is also left-of-center (kind of midway down) one large rock sticking well out of the water which has a one-boat eddy to catch, or may allow a rock-splat or rock-boof at some flows (for those who are so inclined).

As soon as large trees populate the river-right bank, you want to be center-to-center-right for this double-ledge (bedrock intrusion). (You'll miss any chance at catching it if you are left-of-center as you approach this area!)

The first ledge/wave (maybe 20-30' in width) lies centerstream, and the second one (40-50' in width) lies just downstream stretching from right-shore nearly 1/3rd across the river.

===================

At flows in the 400-1000 range, very sweet beginner/intermediate play is possible here. Front surfs, side surfs, and flatspins may be practiced to your heart's content. Better playboaters may also manage some backsurfs and blasts. A sweet attainment move is possible, coming off the lower (main) wave to 'surfers right' (toward center-river), ferrying across a bit of current, paddling up a break (slackwater) to another minor diagonal ledge/wave, surfing it to the upstream/left (toward river-right), and paddling up slackwater to regain an upper wave.

At higher flows (above 1000 and into 2000-3000 cfs) this location develops waves (often with sweet soft foam-pile). Surfing will be marvelous, but mostly 'catch-on-the-fly'. It may be possible to regain the bottom wave/hole by paddling tight to river-right banks, but more likely any repeat play will be by going ashore to carry back above the waves, severly limiting most boaters' interests.

===================

The next features downstream ( 'Timber Dam' and 'The Plague at Locust') are generally pretty lame when flows provide best play here and N.Ave., so boaters may wish to maximize play (and cut out the nearly 2.5 miles of mostly uninteresting paddle between) by playing U-Park Ledge, then driving down check out North Avenue.

This area is easily accessable as a park-and-play by taking Capital Drive to Humboldt Boulevard, then heading north on the dead-end-stub. During the UW-Milwaukee school year, I have never had any problem parking in the front edge of their lot, but signage indicates the lot is closed when school is not in full session.

About half-way back toward that lot, there is a short graveled stub to the left (and up a bit of a slope -- next to an old sign about some dog center) which similarly had never been a problem for parking. However, arriving there some years back to park-and-play UPL, a squad car was parked on the gravel stub. I stopped, rolled down my window to chat with the officer to casually inform him of my plans, and ask if there was any problem with parking my vehicle there while on the river. He informed me this area was private property of the TV station, and that they would have my vehicle ticketed and towed, and suggested I park in the UPark lot instead. I mentioned to him that there was very specific signage indicating that on days when the shuttle buses are not running (weekends and all summer) it is illegal to park in that lot.

He then suggested I park on the road heading in/out of that lot. Amazed, I expressed that while there are no signs specifically saying "No Parking", neither are there any marked parking spaces, thus I would expect my vehicle to be ticketed for being parked (and 'abandoned') in a traffic lane.

He then suggested that I could drive passenger-side wheels over the curb and onto the grass, to park driver-side wheels as close to the curb as possible, which I subsequently thanked him and did. The entire exchange was courteous and noncontentious (though more than a bit perplexing). This is what I have been doing for access here ever since, but have always wondered if (at some random time) some other officer or individual might decide that this is not a legitimate way to park a vehicle.

So ... it leaves me in a bit of a quandry. I've never had a problem parking in the U-Park lot when shuttles are running, and never had a problem (prior to this encounter) parking on the gravel stub when the lot is closed, and now never had a problem with parking on the grass with 'inside driver's side' tires nearly against the curb. Armed with that info, you are each on your own to choose your parking option if/when you decide to access the river at this location!