Savage River (Maryland) from Allegany Bridge

The Savage River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed August 15, 2011

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

Garrett County, Maryland Garrett County () is the westernmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,806, making it the third-least populous county in Maryland. Its county seat is Oakland. The county was named for John Wor ...

, and is the first major

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

North Branch Potomac River The North Branch Potomac River flows from Fairfax Stone in West Virginia to its confluence with the South Branch Potomac River near Green Spring, West Virginia, where it turns into the Potomac River proper. Course From the Fairfax Stone, th ...

from its source. The river was named for 18th century

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

John Savage. Tributaries to the Savage River upstream of the Savage River Reservoir include Carey Run, Mudlick Run, Little Savage River, Bluelick Run, Blacklick Run, Warnick Run, Poplar Lick Run, and Bear Pen Run. At the southern end of the reservoir, the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

maintains the Savage River Dam for

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

and recreation. It has trout fishing for

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model ...

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler * BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programmin ...

and sometimes cutthroat trout. Pine Swamp Run, Dry Run, Middle Fork Crabtree Creek, and Crabtree Creek flow into the reservoir. Aaron Run joins the Savage River just upstream of its merger with the North Branch Potomac River. The last of the river, from the Savage River Dam to its confluence with the Potomac at Bloomington, Maryland, is a destination for

whitewater Whitewater forms in a rapid context, in particular, when a river's gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that froths, making the water appear opaque and ...

paddling and

slalom To slalom is to zigzag between obstacles. It may refer to: Sports ;Alpine skiing and/or snowboarding * Slalom skiing, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Giant slalom, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Super-G ...

racing, on the infrequent occasion when sufficient water is released from the dam. There were three one-day recreational releases in 2011, two in June and one in September. The Savage has been used for the U.S. Olympic Trials and was the site of the

1989 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships The 1989 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships were held on Savage River in Garrett County, Maryland (western part of the state) near Pittsburgh in the United States under the auspices of the International Canoe Federation. It was the 21st editi ...

on June 24–25. The usual put-in for whitewater boats is below the dam, where the highway crosses the river. The slalom racing section begins further downstream, below the Piedmont Dam, and ends downstream at the viewing stand above the pedestrian suspension bridge. The 1989 race was the first time the Slalom World Championships were held in the United States. The next occasion was a quarter century later in 2014, when they were held on artificial whitewater at the nearby Adventure Sports Center International, constructed in 2007 as a more accessible alternative to the seldom-watered Savage.Sports Center Wins Bid to Host 2014 World Champs
Retrieved 2011-05-11 The average gradient for the Savage River's whitewater section is 75 feet/mile (1.4%), with sections at 100 feet/mile (1.9%), giving the rapids a whitewater class III to III + at the typical recreational release of . The rapids are fast and continuous, with very few eddies or calm spots.

References

Rivers of Maryland Rivers of Garrett County, Maryland Tributaries of the Potomac River {{Maryland-river-stub