West Brook - Snake Den Rd. to Magee Rd.


West Brook, New Jersey, US

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Snake Den Rd. to Magee Rd.

Usual Difficulty IV-V (for normal flows)
Length 2 Miles
Avg. Gradient 190 fpm

Lots of Boogie on West Brook


Lots of Boogie on West Brook
Photo of John Greer by Stephen Strange taken 10/28/06 @ 500

Gauge Information

Name Range Difficulty Updated Level
West Brook near Wanaque NJ
usgs-01386000 300 - 1000 cfs IV-V 01h17m 21 cfs (rc= -0.4 )


River Description

West Brook into Wanaque Res.

This is the rare tiny creek with a gauge within a mile of the takeout. John Greer and I ran this on Oct. 28, 2006. It was running at about 500cfs which seemed to be a good medium level.

What a great stretch of creekin! After a few hundred yards of class 3 warm up, the creek gave us 2 miles of tight, steep, continuous, class 4 boogie, punctuated with an occasional class 5 drop ( a few in a row just below the bridge). Keep your eyes open for wood and horizion lines, as both seem to jump up on you frequently.

  • Look for 300cfs as a minimum on the West Brook at Wanaque gauge.
  • 500-700 would be a great range.
  • Above 800 and things will start happening very fast on this run.
Put-in where the creek comes out of the small lake. Or downstream where Snake Den Rd. crosses the creek.

Take-out where the road crosses the creek. Be careful. there's a Snooty fishing club which owns all of the land around the last 1/2 mile of the creek and has lots of No Trespassing signs up. I've been told they have cameras mounted in the trees to monitor tresspassing (I'm not kidding)

Another option would be to take out above the horse farm and climb up the bank to the road. It's not a bad climb, the land seems to be public and you only miss one good rapid (Horse Show, IV).

Be on your game and watch out for wood, this run seems to pick up a lot of it!

StreamTeam Status: Verified
Last Updated: 2006-11-02 21:24:35

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