Falls, Michigan, US

Mead Rd to Lake Superior (L'Anse) (2 miles)

Powerhouse Falls

Powerhouse Falls
Photo by Jesse Becker taken 04/01/06 @ Medium/high

Gauge Information

River Description

Quick Facts:
Location: South of L'Anse into Downtown L'Anse.
Shuttle Length: 3.4 miles. (See details in "Directions" Tab.)
Character: Ledges and falls, ledges and falls (and a few slides).
Drainage area at Hwy.41: 48 square miles.

Put-in elevation is approximately 890'.
Take-out elevation is approximately 600' (mean Lake Superior elevation).
Thus total elevation change is approximately 290'.

Information (lat, lng, elev, total drop, run length, shuttle length) adjusted and/or verified from best manual extrapolation of online data (via maps.google.com, distance measuring tool, and other resources). 2009.02.05

The Falls is one of the classic South Shore creek runs and is aptly named as most of the drops are of a ledge type. This run is a good intro to South Shore boating as it is located along the outskirts of L'Anse and is about as forgiving as a stream with this gradient can be.

This run is near continuous whitewater from the start with lighter whitewater between the more notable drops. The two drops of greatest consequence, "Powerhouse Falls" (IV+) and "Asshole" (IV), come early in the run. Some may wish to use an alternate put-in below "Powerhouse Falls", located by carrying in off Power Dam Rd to avoid a portage. Ledge type drops up to 10' ("Big Mo Falls") continue to the Hwy 41 bridge. The final drop to Lake Superior consists of a staircase drop followed by a slide and finally a breached dam.

Removal of a former hydro dam at the end of Power Dam Rd allows one to start at the head of the gradient off Mead Rd and adds a quarter mile of enjoyable warm-up water. As of Spring '00, the traditional put-in off Power Dam Rd was gated and the road in poor condition.

Google Maps has reasonably good resolution aerials of this reach. You can go to the "Map" tab, click 'Satellite' or 'USGS Aerial', double click near (not on, but near) the put-in location icon (or any other spot on the run), zoom to the maximum resolution (without losing image), and do a 'virtual tour' to 'walk' down the reach. However, due to the narrowness of the river on this run (and resulting tree-cover), and not quite optimum resolution, many of the drops are obscured or otherwise not totally apparent.

AW members may click here for Part 2 of an article from the AW Journal, way back in 1981!
(AW members may also click here for Part 1 of the article.)

The article describes the following:
Michigan's

     Upper Presque Isle, 
     Lower Presque Isle, 
     Middle Black, 
     Lower Black, 
     Upper Silver, 
     Lower Silver, 
     Rock, 

     Falls, (this river/reach)

and Wisconsin's 
     Lower Brunsweiler, 
     Montreal, W.Fk., and 
     Montreal Canyon.