I became interested in the Sugar River a few years ago when, while driving and delivering food for Eat Street and Door dash, I kept seeing signs for the Sugar River Watershed in Verona. “Where are the headwaters for this thing?” I wondered, turning the steering wheel and pointing the nose of my janky 2014 Ford uphill into the Hawk’s Ridge neighborhood. The watershed area looked like a damp patch of grass between two new West Madison neighborhoods. It took a little more looking but I found her.
If the Mississippi (river) is “Big Momma” in this area and the Wisconsin River is “Old Grandpa;” if the Rock River is a “Feisty Brother” (these are terms I’m making up here on the fly) then the Sugar River is a shy, sweet “Little Sister” in the Wisconsin/Illinois Driftless border region. These past several months I went looking for spots of interest along this gentle, north to south running river.
It begins up near Mount Horeb and flows east down the ridge and curves south. The watershed is much larger than I gave it credit for. This area is cared for by the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association and encompasses a drainage area of some 170 square miles situated between West Madison, Verona, Mt Horeb, and Belleville. They are a non-profit with nearly 100 volunteers dedicated to maintaining a vibrant habitat for area wildlife in balance with exploration opportunities for people that include canoeing, hiking, and fishing. Their website is “uppersugar.org”
This spring I visited the Sugar River Valley Road Boat Launch (off Valley Road via Hwy 69 – South of Epic in Verona). “Boat Launch” is a bit generous sounding, but it works very well for a canoe launch site. Here the river is maybe 8 feet wide. You could almost leap across it from one bank to the other. Please don’t attempt this.
South of Madison down County Road MM for 30 miles-ish, the Sugar River visits three towns with names straight out of New York. These would be: Albany, Brooklyn, and Attica. Here the river looks like a river. Fifty feet or more wide, the depth is mostly a shallow 3 to 4 feet, but there are deeper spots, and though the current is very gentle, it can, of course, pick up during Big Rain Season. (Or Wisco’s “Monsoon Season,” as I like to call it. Seriously. If you look at a color-coded world topographical map of plant density, the Driftless is on par with East India. I swear to God.) Gentle current? Nice and wide? Four feet deep? That can only imply one (of several) thing(s)… ! That’s right, tubing.
Albany is home to S&B Tubing. I chose this hot-a** Fourth of July weekend (2025) to tube the Sugar River. So, I put on my Crocs, put a dab of suntan lotion on my bald spot, went to the computer, looked up S&B, and printed-out and signed S&B’s indemnity waiver. Then I pointed the nose of my (less janky) Hyundai Elantra south and drove a half hour to where the Sugar River flows through the center of downtown Albany. Downton Abbey? No, downtown Albany.
The float from Albany is four twisty turney miles. The river moves at one mile per hour, so, yep – set aside at least four hours to complete the journey. (Notably, today’s trip took five hours as there were head winds.) The shop has, inside, an ATM. They will check your car keys for you (kept on a pegboard behind the counter). They sell plastic, sealable sleeves for your phone that hang on a lanyard for $15. One tube rental is $20 which covers the trip and the return bus ride. They also rent kayaks and cooler rafts; and they give out all the twine a group could want to tie their tubes together. This being a Saturday, there were literally hundreds upon hundreds of people on the river today. Many large groups tied together in a daisy chain with the cooler(s) in the middle. I am a person with a larger-than-average sized middle section, so I asked, and they did provide an XL tube.
So, earlier in the article, when I compared the Sugar River to a shy, demure, lil’ sis in the family of etc., well, when I tried to mount-up, she was having none of that. I got “B” slapped. My Crocs fell off, I almost lost my glasses, my shorts fell half-way down, and the second toenail on my left foot was… well, it was removed. My tube had run over me like a bus over a tricycle. (Sorry about that analogy – it got stuck in my head and I couldn’t think of anything else. Plus: My toe!) After dozens of concerned stares, some small amount of embarrassment, and a, “Hey dude, you okay?” Another floater anchored my tube as I got up and going – properly this time.
It really was a perfect day otherwise. From noon to five the sky went from mostly sunny to partly cloudy, then later, from cloudy into a trio of quick, intermittent, summer showers. Then back to partly cloudy/partly sunny again. I may be a little sunburned, but only a little.
The river runs between banks of tall green trees, old and tall with nothing to be seen beyond other than more green and shady trees. For every, like, ten trees, there would be one dead tree – a bare trunk falling over. Not actively perceptibly falling over – just engaged in the years-long process of leaning over the river and lowering down. Clouds would pass and the leaves would fan out in shades of mint and lime, and then flip into shades of dark hunter green. It was a breezy day, so you could hear that shushing through the leaves and branches. This was punctuated by laughter and the casual gabbing of young women and men – some nearby and some echoing from down the way. At once you can feel both private and relaxed unto yourself, and then one among dozens of very chill people – floating on the Sugar River.
There were dogs floating with their people. There were groups singing along to their playlists booming from waterproof portable bluetooth speakers. People were throwing marshmallows at each other (this is a thing). Sandbars appeared once every mile. Here, tubers beached, got out, stretched, reconnoitered their junk, and tip-toed into the woods for whatever reason. Some dudes threw a football. Some ladies lay beached, spread eagle, like they had “the spins.”
It should be said that this day’s activity was very much young adult centered. Sure, I was there. Many 40-somethings were there. But inside the coolers was (and ever-is) cans of beer. At mile marker #1 I overheard one girl ask her group, “So, how many have you had?”
“I’ve had three,” another girl answered.
“I’ve had seven,” her boyfriend answered.
Needless to say, around hour three, the day-drinking people start to get a little bleary-eyed. S&B mandated cooler searches before launch. Just an “Open and Show Us What’s Inside” type deal. I think they were looking for hard liquor or glass (not allowed) and other obvious no-noes. A Glock, for example, or a three-foot bong, perhaps. A cooler full of zebra mussels would be bad.
The hooting and hollering was an audio program for me as I was too busy looking at the hypnotic trees and clouds. Tubing groups oscillated between the occasional bumper-car bump and longer stretches of purposeful self-contained solitude. The sound of laughter and goofy behavior does travel well flat across the river surface, but just as quickly it evaporates up into the trees. Speaking for myself, I neither drank nor imbibed any trippy illegals for this assignment. Again, I swear to God. Plus, I kinda feel like the whole point of tubing is to replicate the feeling of blissful swooning naturally. If I wanted “the spins” I simply paddled in a circle. My tube spun. It only took like five good paddles with one hand.
Genius idea I saw played out among the larger flotillas: one person (the designated driver at journey’s end – I suspect) doesn’t rent a tube. They rent a kayak. Like a shepherd with his flock, they pull the others out of harm’s way. They orbit. They pick up dropped things that float. They bump and cajole. They will dutifully transport beverages from one side of the barge to the other. They scout ahead. To me, this seems ideal for bachelorette and bachelor wedding parties. Grant this duty to the friend who didn’t make the cut onto the head table; the sister or brother still in high school, perhaps. If they be sporty, yarr.
Spinning a full 180 degrees here, literally, within this four-mile stretch of the Sugar: at the end of the journey lies Camp Sweet Minihaha. This is a fantastic campground. Very popular in the area in a “iykyk” kind of way. On summer weekends the place is stuffed to the gills with tents and campers and RVs. In the front, near the office and convenience/supply store, they have an ice cream truck. They have an outdoor stage for singers and guitar strummers. I can’t picture any shred-your-face-off rock bands exploding here, no, just performers who fit neatly into the Campground vibe.
After the mile 4 marker, the walls of trees on either bank began to open and show residential properties here and there with small docks and slips for fishing. The sound of a nearby highway revealed, around one bend, a bridge crossing the river. People in cars waved at the tubers who waved back. Underneath the bridge, looking up at the steel and cement, in the underside corners I could see dozens of birds’ nests built out of mud. Cliff Swallows darted in and out of these little cave-like nests, a couple every minute or so.
Then breaks in the foliage on the shore revealed campsites. This was the long run of camping sites belonging to Camp Sweet Minihaha. They also rent tubes for tubing. It is an option granted to their many overnight campers, but non-campers may join in for a fee. The campground operates their tube rentals in conjunction with S&B. I don’t mean to imply the two businesses are financially conjoined, but simply that they operate in and around each other. They share the same launch back up in downtown Albany. Minihaha transports their dry customers from the campground, in school buses, to the start point (next to S&B). Meanwhile, S&B buses their wet customers from the landing point back to downtown. If you float the Sugar, and you’re staying at Camp Sweet Minihaha, you exit the river at the campground. (Ten minutes downstream is the pick-up spot for S&B.) You return your tube to the Camp staff. And it’s on you how you get dry. Well, it’s on you tubing with either place. But at Minihaha you have a campfire, a campsite, and communal showers to help you out. After busing back to S&B, you simply get in your car and drive home wet and wrapped in a towel… presumably. That’s what I did.
Back at home, my arms are just the teeniest bit sore from paddling; from the open-handed scooping of water to help steer me clear of the odd half-sunken branch. The tops of my feet might be sunburned, because I didn’t put lotion on them… because I planned on wearing my Crocs! I didn’t lose the Crocs, however. They did the trip buckled to the tube with the safety-vest strap. And, well, back at home, I got a good-sized glop of antibiotic ointment on my toe. Odds are the nail will grow back. Otherwise, I feel good. Floating still after subjecting myself to massive amounts of oxygenated green and blue and sunlight on the Sugar River. I’ll sleep well tonight.
Writing and Photos by: Matt Schumann
