Highway 22 to Shaws Landing:
A return visit with a twist, this trip on the Little Wolf treats paddlers to boulder gardens galore and tasty Class I rapids before ending in bayou-like bottomlands at its confluence with the Wolf River proper. Unfortunately, paddlers will likely encounter a lot of litter ensnared along the banks, courtesy of the inflatable tube crowd coinciding with this segment of the river.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: July 7, 2025
Skill Level: Intermediate
Class Difficulty: A few sets of Class I rapids shimmied between riffles and slow pools.
Gradient:
≈ 4′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Royalton: ht/ft: 2.7′ | cfs: n/a
Gauge note: Gauge discontinued in June of 2020.
Recommended Levels:
We recommend this level – though this is atypically high.
Put-In:
Wayside park off Highway 22/110 in Manawa, Wisconsin
GPS: 44.43934, -88.92846
Take-Out:
Shaws Landing on Shaw Road outside of New London
GPS: 44.37318, -88.80342
Time: Put in at 1:00p. Out at 5:00p.
Total Time: 4h
Miles Paddled: 12.5
Alternate Trip Ideas:
Manawa to County Road X (12.25 Miles)
Wildlife:
Bald eagles, turtles, frogs, great blue herons, kingfishers, doe and fawn.
Shuttle Information:
15.5 miles. The shuttle is so long because we extended our trip into the Wolf River, and, respectfully cribbing from Rebecca Solnit, “no straight road” takes you from Shaws Landing to Highway 110.
Background:
Barry first loped up to the Little Wolf in 2011 and paddled the Manawa to County X segment, largely inspired by Mike Svob’s Paddling Southern Wisconsin, where this trip is “Little Wolf River 2.” I cut my own teeth (fangs?) on the Little Wolf a year later on Svob’s first recommended trip, from the DNR landing on Wolf River Road to Big Falls. That trip was so much howling fun, I’ve done it five additional times since 2012. But for the longest time I’d never padded my way down to Manawa. There is no objective reason for this discrepancy other than the following: if having to choose between driving two hours to paddle 1) the gorgeous creek-like section of the Little Wolf featuring a mile-long stretch of Class I-II boulder gardens with a grand finale later on of a Class II plunge through a scenic dells or 2) the wider, slower, longer section that never rises above Class I and is thronged with partygoers in floatable tubes plus a fee to take out at a private access campground compound that’s as busy as a carnival – then the choice is obvious.
Still, I’d wanted to paddle from Manawa on down for years.
Recently, this interest was rekindled in the wake of the breached dam in Manawa in July 2024. Nearly 6” of rain fell in as many hours, overwhelming a wall of the nearly 100-year-old dam and thus draining the millpond behind it that was 180 acres large. For the first time in a century, the Little Wolf flowed freely through Manawa.
The local Friends of the Little Wolf River group had invited us to join them on a trip to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the breached dam, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Instead, I got up there a couple days later and rendezvoused with friend and fellow Miles Paddler, Eric, who was in the area already and had invited me to stay with him at a cabin near Rosholt. We opted for beginning at the wayside park at Highway 22/110 because this was what Barry stated he’d do differently if he were to paddle this trip again. But we made up the difference by adding 2.5 miles beyond County X and onto the Wolf River. I love confluences – two rivers for one paddle! And here it’s the tributary Little Wolf to the big (but by no means “bad”) Wolf. It doesn’t get much more lupine than that!
Besides, to end a trip at County X means using a private landing/parking area – there is no alternative or ambiguity about this situation – and I’m loath to pay a fee for something that has less to do with convenience than it does practical necessity. (For more on this, see below.)
Overview:
The wayside park off Highway 22/110 is fantastic. There’s plenty of parking, room to pull a trailer around, and easy access to the river. There are no facilities, however. Svob’s assessment of this trip is spot-on: it’s a “nice mixture of deep, wide, scenic stretches, riffly boulder gardens, and Class I rapids.” Indeed, you’ll experience each of these within the first mile – and beyond. The river is about 100′ wide here, and this width will stay consistent until the confluence.
Following a set of power lines and zesty riffles, an attractive wooded ridge appears downstream before a left-hand bend. Next comes a dollop of boulders, the first of several such gardens throughout this trip. Called “erratics,” they’re the cookie crumbs of the Canadian Shield – the ancient basement of North America. When the glaciers of the last Ice Age came down from Canada, miles-thick and mountain-high, they scraped and planed the landscape, grinding up so much bedrock along the way. As the planet warmed, the colossal ice began to melt and backtrack. As such, an incredible, almost inconceivable amount of earthen hodgepodge called “drift” – mostly sand, gravel, and clay – was deposited, together with the chewed up cookie crumbs of bedrock (better known as boulders). They’re called “erratics” because their rock type is foreign and not otherwise found in their present location.
Editor’s note: no AI or Chat GPT was used, abused, infused, or diffused in the making of that last paragraph.
The glacial erratics are salt-and-peppered for the next couple miles. The road riding side-saddle on your left splinters to the west and bridges the river at County Highway BB, two miles below the wayside park, where there’s an excellent access downstream-left. A half-mile straightaway leads to the South Branch of the Little Wolf River, adding considerable volume to the mainstream. Pleasant in its own right, but lacking the rapids, boulders, and good accesses of the main branch, the South Branch offers select intimacy for paddlers seeking to explore the obscure.
Passing half a dozen houses, the current all but dies in the next mile. But then in a right-hand bend a platter of boulder gardens stirs the river from its slumber. New paddlers will want to be careful here, as there’s a subtle S curve and you’ll need to thread through the obstacle course. Alas, the action is brief before the Little Wolf goes back to bed. Left and right, big broad bends appear in the next mile. As did the first of what we’d see more of later on, once we merged onto the Wolf River: houseboats – like straight outta Seattle. A short stretch of ostentatious houses appears off to the left as the river gracefully arcs to the right toward the next bridge, at Highway 54, where there’s a dedicated landing upstream-left. This is one of the frequently used starting points for the rental tubes, so from here to County X (four miles downstream) you can cast aside all illusions of solitude. Or just do as so many of the tubers and let it drop in the river and drift onward, abandoned.
Directly below the Highway 54 bridge lies a set of a Class I rapids. But for the bobbing tubers, the next few miles are quite pleasant and feature an intermittent mix of riffles, light rapids, boulder gardens, and otherwise undeveloped banks wooded banks. Houses are nearby but seldom seen. Another set of power lines precedes the next bridge, at Ostrander Road, where again there’s access downstream-right (and likewise deployed by the local outfitter to drop off tubers). From here it’s 1.5 miles to the County X bridge, where the gradient is distinctly steeper. A long, broad S curve sinuously links one bridge to the other, where in between are bevies of boulder gardens, riffles, another dash of Class I rapids, and some islands. It’s all quite attractive and infectiously fun, though it has slow pools as well. But it’s also the single-most congested (would “congregated” be kinder?) segment of the entire Little Wolf River. Immediately below the County X bridge is the beachy access at Wolf River Trips & Campground, the open-to-the-public-but-still-private impresario of the circus, where paddlers historically take out – and will need to pay a fee to use.
Unfortunately, there is no public access at or along or below the County X bridge itself – nowhere to get out, nowhere to leave a vehicle. Your only options are conceding to the private outfitter/campground (more on this in a minute) or continuing downstream. But County X is the last bridge over the Little Wolf River, and there is no public access anywhere til after the Wolf River confluence, 2.5 miles downriver.
The Little Wolf’s final miles are decisively interesting in that the landscape entirely changes. Gone are the boulder gardens, the riffles and rapids. The river flows slow and gets lugubrious, even a little spooky. Only half a mile down from County X and the hubbub you’ll slip inside the Mukwa Wildlife Area, nearly 1300 acres of silver maples, sloughed oxbows, and floodplains in a veritable no-man’s-land. There are many “wrong” ways to go (meaning dead ends), but it’s intuitive where the inexorable main channel is headed. By this point, you may not have the stamina to poke about or linger, but the environs are pretty wild back here.
Soon enough, you’ll see the mouth (snout?) and the Wolf River. The transition is not subtle! You’ll go from a 100′-wide stream to a major river – one of Wisconsin’s top five longest – that’s nearly 300′ wide. The Venerable Svob warns of motorboats and the like on the lower Wolf, but we paddled on a Monday afternoon and had no traffic to contend with. Still, a summer weekend would likely be quite different. Though, to put this in context, you’ll be on the big Wolf for only half a mile. Honestly, it’s mostly unremarkable, but for a fabulous octagonal house, more of those enviable houseboats, and some bayou-like backwaters. Still, it was enough for Eric to proclaim “Now I can say I’ve paddled the Wolf!” (lest his whitewater bona fides be questioned). This likely goes without saying, but the lower Wolf River is a night and day a difference from the upper Wolf River. In Langlade and Menominee Counties, it’s synonymous with frothing rapids and technical drops ranging from Class II-IV. By and by, everything changes after Keshena, where the Wolf goes from Ma’iingan to a sweet Malamute asleep on a blankey.
The Shaws Landing boat ramp appears on river-left.
What we liked:
There’s a lot to like about this last leg of the Little Wolf – especially if it’s the only segment of the wonderful river you know. There are plenty of secluded moments as well as peppy sections. This trip can be paddled by newbies, but it’s still advised to be accompanied by someone with experience. There’s nothing truly technical, but Class I rapids coursing through boulder gardens can be a bit tricky for the unacquainted.
For my take, the bodacious boulder gardens stole the show. This is Central Wisconsin at its finest, where I swear the most concentrated amount of glacial erratics are featured anywhere in the state – lining fields, endowing front yards, and of course on full display in rivers. There’s just something about Portage and Waupaca Counties…
While wider and slower than the fabulous segment upstream of Big Falls – which is definitely inappropriate for beginners – this is a pleasant trip of its own accord.
I loved the house boats! To be fair, these have nothing to do with paddling the Little Wolf River specifically. But I found my river-anchoritic self romancing about such a setup. More studio apartment than house – the kitchen, living room, and dining area are all in one 20’x10’ space. TV? Nope. Lawn to mow? Negative. Neighbors? Please. Patio balcony with a river view? Check. Sign me up!
What we didn’t like:
Before I bellyache and kvetch, let me get two basic things out of the way first. This segment is wider than my ideal river, and it’s often punctuated with painfully straight and slow flatwater slogs. If there is a riverine equivalent of “hurry up and wait,” this trip might be it. To be fair, even the most exciting stretch of the Little Wolf has slow sections. I am not an adrenaline junkie – I don’t mind slow pools following frenzied spells. But when such slow sequences occur in wide, straight spaces, that rose has lost its blush.
The main complaint about this trip, by far, is the amount of garbage. It’s truly extraordinary (in a very sad, very disappointing way). I went into this trip thinking there would be signs of the breached dam downstream, both the cataract of water from a drained millpond and all that came with that unplugged bathtub. But I didn’t really notice anything out of the ordinary. However, starting like clockwork at Highway 54, trash clustered along the banks, was ensnared in strainers, or was stuck in duckweed cesspools. Over and over and over. And over still. For the next five miles up to and past County X, where the cavalry of revelers in tubes takes out, trash, trash, trash.
To give you a sense of the amount, Eric and I hauled in four full garbage bags worth of plastic bottles, aluminum cans, sandals, straws, syringes, flip-flops, Crocs, etc. On top of that, we “rescued” a total of 21 PFDs, all of them engraved with “WRT,” or Wolf River Trips, the local outfitter. We could do this because a) we were in canoes and had the room for such “carrion luggage” and b) we strive to be good stewards. I always bring a bag or two for such purposes, but this was totally beyond our capacity; neither of us was prepared or outfitted for such a staggering amount of pollution. We could have collected more – a lot more – but just ran out of room. Besides, one does grow jaded…and grossed out by fetid water sloshing around one’s boat. I truly cannot say which happened faster or first: losing our will and thrill for the Little Wolf, or the time we had allotted for such a paddle on account of the constant detours to declutter the litter.
For what it’s worth, we paddled this trip on the Monday following the July 4th weekend, so the amount of garbage could well have been more than its “normal” amount. Maybe. But were any WRT staff out there hauling out junk or their own PFDs? No. Was anyone anywhere besides us doing this? Again, no. And do I enjoy going out of my way to invite spiders or stinky muck inside my boat, for a river I live nowhere near and likely won’t return to for years? No, no, and no.
We finally arrived at the sandy access/factory operation at Wolf River Trips (County X) to empty our trash and return the water-logged PFDs (again, 21 total – life vests for crying out loud!?!). We were thanked by a couple teenage kids milling about after returning the PFDs, but that was the extent of it. Nobody on site commented on our large-haul bags of trash, except for one thoughtful and thankful kayaker who was renting a boat from WRT. Needless to say, the exposure and experience left a nasty impression on us.
While I’m talking about trash, how about all the trash talk encountered on the water? F-bombs, ohmygods, and witch-cackle laughter double-track over every pod’s worth of tubes tied together having their own commercial-computer music playing from someone’s phone. Every group had music playing to the backdrop of their own conversations. I’m no shrinking violet, believe you me, and swear like a sailor if and when such is the choice word to punctuate my point. I am from New Jersey after all, so, there’s no “pearl-clutching” here. But the 4 miles in between Highway 54 and County X is practically debauchery, and the negligence of littering was barbarous.
Mind you – this was a Monday afternoon in July. Nonetheless, we paddled past a hundred bobbing tubes, easily. One hundred…on a Monday. I simply cannot fathom what this would be like on a summer weekend. Alas, I don’t have to. This photo, from Travel Wisconsin, captures it all too well (although this image only shows a 0.25-mile nib; count the number of tubes here and multiply that by sixteen to get a more accurate sense of the swarm).
I do not mean to throw shade or cast aspersions on Wolf River Trips & Campground. After all, the garbage and verbiage are not their fault. In fact, the folks there now are new operators and are actively trying to discourage the cavalier behavior of their clientele (for more on that, see here). We truly respect that and recognize that such a cultural change does not happen over night or even after one season. The tubing hooligans have had a reputation for several decades now, on par with the Apple River in Somerset, Wisconsin.
Still, as an independent paddler minding my own business and not relying on a private business responsible for attracting and catering to a huge contingent of non-paddlers, it’s difficult to decouple the two. I’ve paddled 45+ miles of the Little Wolf River. Nowhere is there trash or cussing, blaring music or boisterous banter, other than the four miles from Highway 54 to County X – the inner tube section. That stretch represents less than 10% of all the miles the Little Wolf River offers to paddlers, yet it constitutes 100% of all the negative associations.
Finally, there’s the camel’s straw of having to pay to use the landing at County X. As I mentioned above, you must take out here or continue 2.5 miles downstream to the Wolf River, which in turn will double the shuttle distance. (Sure, you could end your trip at Ostrander Road, upstream of County X, but that would cut out the funnest section of the lower Little Wolf.) Thus, for paddlers using their own gear and doing their own shuttle, having to pay to use the landing at Wolf River Trips feels a bit extortive – call it county highway robbery. Paddlers who do collect trash and/or life vests can “barter” these for free use of the landing/parking, but that feels a bit subservient to me. The burden of keeping a river clean should fall upon those who are profiting from it being littered in the first place, no matter how indirectly.
If we did this trip again:
The main thing I’d do differently is paddle this trip before Memorial Day or after Labor Day. It’s a shame to write off paddling a river for three months of the year – especially when the paddling season itself is only six months long for most of us. And it should go without saying that we all share our rivers, paddlers and tubers alike. But this trip in the summertime is totally over the top. If that sounds like crying Little Wolf, well, then so be it.
If water levels allowed, I’d coincide it with autumn and catch the colorful foliage. And like most folks, I’d call it quits at County X. I’m glad we ventured down to the Wolf, and I’d encourage anyone else so curious to doing the same. But having done it once is enough.
***************
Related Information:
Little Wolf River II: Ness Road to Big Falls
Little Wolf River III: Big Falls to Highway 110
Little Wolf River IV: Symco to Highway 22
Good People: Friends of the Little Wolf River
Guide: Paddling Southern Wisconsin
Wikipedia: Little Wolf River
Photo Gallery:
Alternate Trip Report: Shorter Paddle (12.25 Miles)
Manawa to County Road X
September 11, 2011
☆ ☆ ☆
Great for beginners, this mostly flatwater stretch does offer some riffles and a manageable drop, but this section of the Little Wolf is more peaceful than exciting, despite being a popular tubing destination.
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Royalton: ht/ft: n/a | cfs: 280
Gauge note: Gauge discontinued in June of 2020.
Put-In:
Highway 22, Manawa, Wisconsin
GPS: 44.46619, -88.92059
Take-Out:
County Road X
GPS: 44.38853, -88.82171
Time: Put in at 12:15p. Out at 3:30p.
Total Time: 3h 15m
Miles Paddled: 12.25
What we liked:
Having paddled one of the fantastic whitewater sections of the Wolf River, I was curious about what the Little Wolf would offer, a much tamer tributary. There are a lot of physical similarities like long stretches of beautiful boulder gardens and some nice little drops but much less current to play in (as to be expected). I only knew of the Little Wolf River until recently but got some great information from Mark at WiPaddle. The section I paddled was based on Mike Svob’s Little Wolf River 2 write-up in Paddling Southern Wisconsin and it was a remarkably accurate assessment of the trip.
I decided to take out at Highway X which is the privately owned Wolf River Campground. I had heard (and Mike makes a note in the book) that they require a fee to take out there. I figured I’d stop, see how much it was and if it was to exorbitant I’d take out at the Ostrander Road bridge. The Campground is something else (it’s basically just waiting for a party) with a bar, beach and a huge gaming area. I asked the girl in the office how much it costs to take out there. She had no idea what I was talking about and had never heard of that. She asked if I had my own life jacket or if I needed a ride but since I didn’t, she didn’t think it was a big deal. She tried calling the owner (or somebody) but wasn’t able to get an answer. So I started my trek to the put-in (half expecting to get hassled when I took-out there but it wasn’t a problem). That’s not to say they don’t charge a fee (so do stop in and ask). I got the sense that she had no idea what was up.
I put in at Highway 22 in Manawa. It’s not real obvious where you head when you pull in near the dam. Continue through the parking lot, past the warehouse toward the baseball diamond and you’ll spot a very easy access point. From the put-in to Highway 110, the water was slow going with a lot of weeds and algae. The current felt slow but it was a peaceful paddle. There is an occasional riffle and only one slight drop with some rapids.
From Highway 110 on, it’s a rollercoaster of riffles, some rapids and as Mike puts it “long peaceful sections” which really felt like flat water paddling without much current. The lows of the rollercoaster are really sustained slow sections. When the South Branch of the Little Wolf enters, it’s a long 3-mile paddle to Royalton with very little excitement. Along the way I spotted (a few hundred) turtles, frogs, fish and of course one water snake to make me feel uneasy.
At the Ostrander Road bridge, you’ll be greeted by group after group of people tubing their way down to Wolf River Campground. It is a very beautiful section and worth paddling if you don’t mind some company and interesting “conversation and greetings” as you make your way.
What we didn’t like:
This is a long day paddle and the first couple miles aren’t very exciting. It could have been the water level but the current really did feel slow. Oh, and the water snake.
If we did this trip again:
I would definitely put-in at Highway 110. There is a nice little park with easy access. It would shorten the trip by about 2.5 miles but from there to Highway X, you’ll get the best of this section. Further upstream, there is more whitewater if you’re looking for a little bit more excitement (refer to Paddling Southern Wisconsin’s Little Wolf River 1).
Miles Paddled Video:
Photo Gallery:
3 Comments
Jlhubb
July 5, 2017 at 9:44 amWe paddled the Little Wolf (433 c.f.s., July 4 2017) with our 7 and 10 year olds, from Manawa to Hwy 54. Manawa was a great easy put-in; Hwy 54 has a trail on the SW side of the bridge that leads to a small road-side park. We had to carry our kayaks up the trail, which is fairly steep. We were new to rapids, and our kids were new to maneuvering around boulders. The kids had been on plenty of inland lakes and a pretty easy section (Iverson Park to McDill Pond) of the Plover River before, and we had been on the Plover River and the Tomorrow River (we only started kayaking less than a year ago), so we thought that they (and we) were ready for that next step. There was a sizable (for us) drop under Hwy B that we didn’t expect, so we didn’t take chances with the kids and decided to portage it. It wasn’t bad getting out right before the bridge, and a short ways down-river from the bridge there was trail (small road?) that led to closer to the river, so we put back in there. On the next set of small rapids, not associated with a bridge, one of our kids panicked, and he ended up against a rock and capsized his kayak. One of us was able to wade through the water (not too fast for this) and get him and his kayak. Bilge pump was very handy! My 7 year old did fine, but by sheer luck! As we paddled through the slower areas, we talked more about looking farther ahead and what to look for to determine where to go through the rapids. There were lots of slooooow (but very beautiful and serene) areas. On the next couple of rapidy areas, they did a great job, better than me, even! I would say for kids that mostly like a relaxing paddle and fishing but enjoys the occasional excitement of small rapids, this is a great spot, but for kids that like that adrenaline rush (my 7 year old) and get bored with too much flat water paddling, this river is almost too sluggish. He enjoyed the rapids and maneuvering around boulders but got bored on the log slow parts. It was also a long paddle for kids, and I’m glad we didn’t decide to go all the way to Hwy X. Even my other kid that likes the relaxing steady paddling was getting tired by the time we got to Hwy 54. Just an FYI, our kids were using 8 foot Pelicans that originally had no foot braces, but we installed aftermarket foot braces in them to give them more leverage. I think without these, the kids would not have been able to do this entire section. These little 8 foot kayaks are obviously not the most expensive kayaks, but for our kids, we have found them to be stable, trustworthy, and very easy to maneuver around boulder fields and through rapids (with foot-braces were installed). As far as OUR (the parents’) experience, we thought the river was really beautiful, the rapids and riffles were fun (and we now have the confidence to do the first drop next time), the slow areas were like glass and fund to paddle hard (it was like gliding over wet glass!) and the 8 miles and 3 1/2 hours was just right for us recreational kayakers (but we paddle every weekend). My arms were getting a bit tired by the time we got to Hwy 54. It was a great first experience for anyone new to rapids.
Miles Paddled
July 6, 2017 at 11:16 amThank you so much for the detailed update to the trip. I remember there being many sections of flatwater – moreso than riffly-excitement. So great that you got the kids out there too but I can definitely understand the hesitance to run certain rapids. Better to be safe than sorry. And well, bailing is part of the experience too – it happens to the best of us. Glad everyone was safe and it sounds like it was a good trip. Thanks again for the update!
Chris
February 1, 2025 at 8:40 pmOn July 20, 2025 we paddled from Hwy 110 to Hwy X. We loved pretty much everything about the trip. It was a weekend so at Ostrander Rd we started to see tons of tubers…hundreds. If you want to party it’s great. If not take out at Hwy 54. PS they do charge $20 to take out at Wolf River Outfitters at Hwy X. They didn’t charge us because we collected about 15 of there life jackets on the way. I took my e-bike back to get the truck. The trip is very peaceful with a couple of riffles. The tubers were friendly and we got a couple free refreshments from them.