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Moving Forward with Plans

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I've decided to go ahead with my June solo trip plans. Foreseeable obstacles (besides illness) could include interstate travel restrictions, lack of outfitters to print permits, fishing license. Anyone else making plans or are you waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel??
 
Everything here in NY is on hold so, as depressing as it is, I am revising my 2020 trip list. I have shifted some trips from early spring to late spring/early summer and eliminated others. Sections of the AT, the NJ Pine Barrens and spots in PA are now out. I am hoping that we will get some degree of normalcy so I can still do my summer and fall trips as planned, but I will just have to wait and see - more trip list revisions might be in the works. We are being advised to stay in our local area and I am heeding that advisory. I am fortunate to have some hiking, paddling and fly-fishing locations within 10 minutes of home. In terms of camping, there are some multiple-use areas a little further from me that have a couple of primitive campsites in them. When the weather is nicer, I may check them out or just pitch the hammock in the backyard, get the fire pit out of the shed and "camp out."
 
I have plans for a Woodland Caribou trip towards the end of July. Don't really need to do anything at this point but wait and see if the border gets reopened and travel restrictions loosened. Keeping the dates open knowing I could pull it together in less than a week if need be.
 
Kathleen and I are booked to fly out of Yellowknife on June 28 for a two-week trip on the Barren Grounds. That’s still three months away, but there’s not yet any end in sight to the pandemic. I just emailed Ahmic Air for their take on their likely summer flying plans.
 
I live in central NYS and while we're currently under a travel advisory, that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to travel. In fact, the DEC update I received this morning encouraged us to travel "locally" and stay away from others. While the state lands and trails remain open, fire towers have been closed for the foreseeable future. Other than that, it's mostly state parks effected by this and even there the authorities are just closing the playgrounds, ball fields and visitor centers.

So, where does this leave me? Well in a rural area such as where I live the term "local" can be interpreted in a variety of ways. For that reason I still have a lot of day paddling opportunities on the Susquehanna River and even the Erie Canal. I stopped by a local boat launch area this morning and the seasonal gate has been removed so it's open for business. While I probably won't be doing any overnight trips for a bit, at least I'll be able to get out.

Although not paddling oriented, there are a few day hikes I'm looking to do in the Catskills as well. Since I live on what's considered the western edge of the range, I'm going to consider that local enough and go for it once things have dried out a bit.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
 
As the peak likely won't happen for some time I am waiting for the border to open. Backup plans are here in state. The sad truth is you have to be able to self equip and do your own shuttle if this persists. Self quarantine orders for out of state travelers exist in some areas. Would a solo trip qualify? Common sense says yes but who knows with government.
Who knows how long that will last? No one.

Fishing is free to anyone here. At least until April 30. What is happening unfortunately is locals targeting out of state plates even though community spread is already here.

I see no reason not to prep for travel. You will be good to go quickly then.
 
I had a work trip planned in June, but we are self isolating right now, and I don't want to leave my wife home alone for 7 or 8 days during these stressful times. So she will either come with me or i will postpone.
 
Our own lives are changing daily, partly due to our best efforts to embrace spontaneity in an otherwise predictable world, but mostly due to the Corona-kaka we find ourselves in. This goes for all our activities both work and play. Some plans are cancelled, some postponed and some I still regard as lingering possibilities. I think it's still early days yet. I'm not feeling overly negative, nor positive, just feeling fluid to whatever comes along. I think it's okay to prepare for play days, just be prepared to change plans as needed. Keep calm and plan on.
 
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I can paddle locally, both day trip and longer so the opportunities are still there if I want to use them. The question is do I ask my niece to break quarantine to go with me. I am sensing a lot of opposition to me going solo though so I would have to work on that one. I am guessing the fishing trip to Red Lake in June is off with no interprovincial travel allowed, and I assume the closure of non essential business includes fishing camps.

I may set the RV up and camp in my backyard.
 
I had an ice out trip planned in the Adirondacks, but that is on hold. I have a buddy with some land on a pond close by that I can do a couple solo overnighters. Not the same, but way better than nothing.

Bob
 
I may set the RV up and camp in my backyard.

My brother-in-law was stationed north of us here for years until his retirement, and when on leave would regularly come down for visits. He still resides there and we see him whenever we're in that town a few times a year. He doesn't come down south as often now. Anyway, on one visit he insisted we swing by to see an old friend of his who lives on a spacious village property in the middle of farm country only a few miles from where I live now. They talked about the good old days when they were young and foolish and the fun they got up to. It's funny how our definition of fun changes as we grow up and grow old. I'm not that much younger than them so I could keep up and relate to the changing times. The friend gave us a tour of his garage turned wood shop. Great stuff. All kinds of projects on the go, he couldn't sit still on his few days off work. But eventually I insisted he describe to me his real days off spent in leisure, you know, when you want to get away from everything. He said "Follow me, right this way..." and we walked down the driveway to a little turnaround spot I'd missed when we'd arrived. Shoe horned into that small corner in amongst the trees was a tent trailer all set up for camping, table and two chairs sitting outside under an awning waiting for the two escape artists on their days off from the daily grind. He kept apologizing and saying it wasn't much, they don't have more than a week to spend each year getting out of town so this is all they have for summer weekends. He said the (extended) family can have the house while he and his wife live their virtual holidays camping in the yard two days out of seven June through September. They even had a fire pit. Perfect. I called him a lucky man, and a brilliant one to take lemons and not just make lemonade but lemon sherbert, lemon meringue pie and lemon soufflé all in one go. We stood out under the stars mugs of tea in hand and wondered at the possibilities.
 
We keep all of our travel plan open and think of them as if they will happen!! We have a 10-12 day canoe trip on the Big Salmon river up here, then a trip to Quebec to visit family and lots of shorter river trip from one to multiple days!! We'll see what the future brings us worst case scenario, we end up staying up here and traveling just us 3 to the bush some where!
 
What if someone just went into a park or wilderness area, no permit? Backcountry is not closed, just the permit process is useless with the shutdown. I don't see how enforcement is possible or even desirable in this environment.
 
I have a trip scheduled to start May 20th to June 11th. Plan was to paddle another of the James Bay rivers (North French or Yesterday or Kesagami). Those plans are in flux, my partner for that trip is an EMT and is just finishing up a 14 day self-isolation due to "exposure" on the job. Also just found out that the passenger train service out of Moosonee will do it's last run April 6th, no idea how long that will be for nor how reliable the service would be should they restart.

I had much more tentative plans for a couple of 2 - 3 week solo trips in July and August, they would all require 3rd party shuttle services, some by ground and some by air, hard to predict what the situation will be like that far out.
 
I have a trip scheduled to start May 20th to June 11th. Plan was to paddle another of the James Bay rivers (North French or Yesterday or Kesagami). Those plans are in flux, my partner for that trip is an EMT and is just finishing up a 14 day self-isolation due to "exposure" on the job. Also just found out that the passenger train service out of Moosonee will do it's last run April 6th, no idea how long that will be for nor how reliable the service would be should they restart.

I had much more tentative plans for a couple of 2 - 3 week solo trips in July and August, they would all require 3rd party shuttle services, some by ground and some by air, hard to predict what the situation will be like that far out.

Exposure is real and not to be trifled with. Your partner will need a break for sure if he is involved in EMS
My plans now involve hugging. Canoe be dammed. Here is my daughter working in EMS in NYC.Note the very basic gear. Karen in NYC Covid 19.jpg
 
Yeah, well my escape plans were likely nothing more than pie in the sky anyway, so I'm losing nothing by pushing "plans" further and further on. Recreational inconvenience. As the situation escalates and the severity sinks in I'm feeling more mortal right now. Weird to see the world in shut-down mode around me. I had a "normal" strain of flu just before Christmas and it knocked me on my arse for weeks. This C-19 is a silent killer and another animal altogether. Our own family have gone into total avoidance. Hard to do but necessary. Might be some weeks or many months before we do more than video call and text. Whatever it takes to stay safe and see this through. My wife and I have gone from les bisous to la bises I kid you not. Next step is saluting, pretty sure she outranks me.
Complete and total respect for front line people protecting us all whatever shoes they fill or role they play in keeping this world functioning.
 
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Sobering. Makes me realize we have no chance of survival in the case of a moderate correction to population or man made disaster. We could never get away fast, too many people to ride it out here.
 
I am fortunate to be 45min from the wonderful, flatwater, Connowango/Cassadega river system in south western NY. Practically all wilderness like with some camping places too. I have been there three times paddling in the flooded forest this last few weeks. Sure am looking foreword to paddling the adks though!
 
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Kathleen and I have been busy doing our normal activities while we self-isolate at home. In fact, we are actually still enjoying life. For the past three days, we have endured a lot of wind, plus periodic snow showers. We were finally able to get out this morning to repack our 8 km (5 miles) of trails, which blow in, particularly in the open areas. This provides much firmer footing when walking our dog.

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We normally ride together, but I'm taking the picture. You might notice that we are pulling a "drag" behind the ski-doo. When we moved to Preeceville in 2008, we found this drag, homemade from culvert pipe, in a shed. It's a bit dilapidated, but serves our purpose of packing the trails very well.

The 14-day weather forecast promises that beginning April 16, all daytime high temperatures will be above freezing. On April 20, the daytime high will soar to 16 C (61 F). On April 21, the overnight low will remain above freezing at 4 C (39 F).

This naturally has us thinking of summer, and our trip planned to the Barren Grounds out of Yellowknife, NWT. Yesterday I called Stephen of Ahmic Air, who is still operating pretty much as regular. No cancellations yet. But right now, anyone coming to the NWT has to self-isolate for 14 days in either Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik or Yellowknife. We certainly wouldn't want to begin our canoe trip by self-isolating. Stephen said that the NWT is talking about re-opening on July 1. That would be doable, in terms of our itinerary, but we're beginning to think that maybe we don't want to risk exposure on the 6-7 day drive up toYellowknife. In fact, we wonder, would we even want to be confined in the cockpit of the float plane with a pilot, who, for all we know, might be infected? This sheltering at home has made us a little leery of resuming contact with people and crowds, even when the threat is mostly over.

So what to do instead?

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Our property borders the north shore of Lake Lomond. There are only four other houses on the lake. When we moved here, I built a canoe rack at the water's edge, but we have paddled on the lake only a few times in 11 years. It just didn't seem exciting enough. Well, maybe we should spend the summer just enjoying what we have right at our door step. Life could be a lot worse! Not really canoe tripping, but canoeing, nevertheless.
 

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Hopefully the border restrictions will lift and we can canoe some where in Yukon Territory again. We might circumnavigate Atlin Lake and portage over to Tagish and Marsh Lakes. The fishing and camping is better than most of the river trips.

If we can't canoe YT, then we'll probably put in where Scottie Creek crosses the Alcan and canoe to Chisana River and down the Tanana to home. This one is very easy logistically and holds great pike fishing.

We can only hope and plan.
 
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