Experiments to measure normal mode propagation into and out of a shallow‐water wedge have been conducted in an indoor tank. The wedge has a plane sand bottom and a slope which can be set up to 9°. A seven‐element line source allows individual normal modes of low order to be excited. For downslope propagation, measured attenuation and group velocities are in agreement with simple adiabatic normal mode theory. Dispersion and attenuation are rapidly reduced with increasing slope. For downslope propagation, the usual vertical wavefronts associated with normal modes become curved into spheres centered on the source. Up‐slope propagation is dominated by the disappearance of modes as they reach their cutoff depth. The energy of a mode traveling upslope is rapidly lost to the bottom after cutoff with negligible coupling to lower modes. [Work supported by ONR.]