Pike Lake Rd to Donken Tapiola Road (7.6 miles)

A 4 mile access and 3.3 mile egress of moving water (broken only by random, very light rapids) nets you an exciting quarter-mile drop sequence. Just 150' after the confluence with Bruno Creek, the start of the Otter Falls sequence is encountered. This opens with a 5' sloping ledge that serves as fair warning that the main drop is just ahead. _Otter Falls_ is an extended low angle bedrock slide, with two steeper ledges of perhaps 5'-6' in close proximity near the start. This slide sequence extends for perhaps 200 yards before tapering off into light rockbed rapids. Tauriainen Road (shown on maps) comes in (dead ends) very near this location. We are not sure whether part or all of that road may be private or how likely it is to be passable in early season or after heavy rains. If accessable, (and if the area is not all posted against trespass -- unknown to us at this time) it may alow a carry-up, huck, carry-out option as an alternative for seeing/running this falls sequence without doing a shuttle (and without having to run the (nothing-but-low-grade rapids) access and egress portions of this run. Google satellite view also shows a significant powerline clearing and has it marked as a road (though none is specifically visible, so it is likely a utility easement, and/or 4-wheeler/snomobile trail) coming into to river at 5.4 miles from the listed put-in (I.E., about a mile-and-a-quarter after the falls sequence). Absent one of those options working out, you are faced with an even more featureless paddle out of 3.35 miles. If the listed take-out at Donken Tapiola Road (off Hazel Swamp Road) is inaccessible early season, use Horoscope Road (listed on some maps as "Limestone Mountain Road"). This adds another 2 miles of low-gradient paddling (for a total of 9.6 miles from our listed put-in). Fortunately (if this stretch is paddled), while there are no real features apparent, it does appear to move along much better than the 3.35 miles after the falls. A good companion piece to this reach may be the W.Br.Sturgeon, which is located about five miles to the south. The W.Br.Sturgeon is a smaller watershed, so if the Otter is low, it's near certainty the W.Br.Sturgeon will be also.