bear river

Decided to check out the Bear River with some friends that aren't so experienced with kayaking. We had heard the Bear River was calm and had very little obstacles.It was about a 4 hour trip for us, and we weren't working very hard. The river is quite slow, so you will need to paddle to make your way down the river. We came across very few downed trees, jams, and zero low spots. The beginners did great!Awesome river for the first timer, and a beautiful trip for the expierenced!

What the city of Petoskey has done to the Bear River Area and the trails they put in are absolutely fabulous!!! Go there every chance I get to walk in nature and take many wonderful pixs.

We are beginner to intermediate skill paddlers, did the 4 hour trip, first half looked as if no one had cleared it for years. Several deadfall trees nearly blocked entire river. Lost count but at least two were limbo events, had to lay in the bottom of the canoe to traverse. Other deadfalls were passable but had to be able to set up and navigate along the bank. Better plan would have been to portage around a lot of the trees, but no bank and having to relaunch in mid water made the idea of portage impossible for our group. Water level was ok but there are submerged logs along the route,high centered on more than one. We had a couple of young guys along who didn't mind jumping out and helping one of the other boats out of trouble. Nothing dangerous here but the top half is billed as an easy paddle on a slow river, the river is slow but narrow in spots.The second half of the trip was much more what we had expected, slow water only a few snags or deadfall obstacles, problem was we were so spent by the first two hours (took 3.5hrs) did not enjoy the second two much.Unless you take an axe and a chain saw and know how to use them stick to the shorter trip.