Salt Creek in Nebraska

Trip Overview

Took my wife on an upstream trip with the kayaks. We got in at the city park. There is a little path down to the water, you have to be careful to stay on the path because there are nettles and poison ivy just off the side. The edge was a mix of mud and sand so it wasn't too hard to get in.

Rowed up a ways to a rock patch which had a small low head dam across about 3/4 of the way. It is only about 18 inches high so it was easy to drag up over. We then had to walk the kayaks up through the rocks for a couple hundred yards along the side it was pretty easy. When we got about to the highway bridge we were back in easy paddling water.

We rowed upstream about 2.5 miles from there to the next gravel road bridge. Then floated back down and rode through the rock rapids we had walked through earlier. We saw several large groups of fish that would move along beside and in front of us as we were rowing then found themselves running aground as the waters got shallow near the sandbars and they had to splash around in the shallow waters to get back past us into the deeper part of the channel.

I rated this trip as moderate because of the upstream rowing and the walking through the little rapids along with the short carry distance to get to the water from the parking. This trip could be easily done as a down stream trip from the first gravel road bridge west of highway 63 near the Ashland Country Club and you can go down stream as far as you like.

From the park in Ashland or from a park just east of town you can go down to the Platte River and make a full day of it going to Schramm Park or to Louisville. Might make one of those trips in the next few weeks.

Fees:

None on the Salt Creek.
If you go down to the Platte River and get out at Schramm Park or Louisville SRA you will need a NE parks sticker. None needed to get out at the boat ramp across from Louisville.