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Virginia Solo Life: A Sort of Apology

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Virginia Solo Life: An Apology

All,

Greetings from Central Virginia's Piedmont. Trust I won’t wear out my welcome with more information than you ever wanted to know about me (and then some), but then...

I hail from a small city just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains established along the James River circa 1757 called Lynchburg (named after a man, not a verb). We rest along the 37th parallel and feature, among our rich history, mild seasons, and semi-famous Christian College with its late and semi-famous Television Evangelist, year-round enjoyment of some historic and good-natured east coast waterways. Our classic Virginia rivers include, among many others: the James River, which stretches 366 miles across the state from west to east and empties into the Chesapeake Bay; the Shenandoah River, snaking its wandering way up a pastoral valley to empty into the Potomac (yet another classic) at Harper's Ferry; and the New River, which cuts through the southwest portion of our state in a northwesterly direction before carving its verdant way through West Virginia to join the Gauley River at the Kanawha. Some of you older folks—say, any pre-glacial mountain folk still lurking amongst us—may remember this drainage system as the Teays River. And but so while the Commonwealth may not have the wilderness rivers of the North, or the remote and symphonic desert rivers of the West, we nonetheless have our share of wild and scenic places, raucous bolder gardens, jazzy streams tangling with mountain laurel, and the rolling hills and weathered stones of an ancient mountain range. There is also, come autumn, a glorious explosion of color.

So there I live, surveying land and writing apologies and learning to canoe.

I consider myself primarily a practitioner of the art of Canoe Tripping (with a capital T), despite that I as of yet cannot escape for months at a time, that I forego flannel for fleece and linseed oil for Gore-Tex, that I am partial to Watershed drybags and carbon fiber paddles, that I use float bags and nearly always have a helmet in my boat, if not on my head, that my longest canoe trip of 13 days is probably a warm up lap for most of you folks, and that I have yet to explore the wild rivers of the Great North. Perhaps I’m a Canoe Tripper in Training.

—I will here admit that, in order to wangle for myself a more complete understanding of flowing water, I spent ten years paddling a kayak. Try not to hold that against me. I would have injured a lot of canoes learning how to miss (and hit) rocks on our Appalachian Mountain Streams. Plastic kayaks are (sort of) cheap and unbreakable (which may in the end be rather telling and metaphoric). And but so I learned a good deal about moving water from the cockpit of a kayak before returning to the elegance of the canoe, with its triple combination of kneeling power, carry capacity, and nimble dexterity—

My current boat of choice is the as of yet deposed Esquif's rather bland and functional Vertige X (a 14' tandem boat), which I've outfitted solo with the various accoutrements necessary for rocky, east coast brown water, but left open enough to hold the eighty pounds of gear necessary for those longer exploits into the deeper woods and canyons. Her lines are bland but she performs well under reasonable load. The modern hammock—believe it or not—has also in the past few years revolutionized my camp life, as many of our water passages here in the east are narrow, rocky, and wooded with occasional patches of development, and I prefer to keep the camp low down over the water and therefore low down in profile for east coast metropolis trespassing. Many of my favorite local multi-day brown water trips consist of rivers barely over 30 miles long.

I should probably point out that I paddle almost exclusively by myself, partly for the small size of some of our streams, partly to get away from kids and spouse, partly because it is difficult to find paddlers of my persuasion and sensibility, and partly, I suppose, because I prefer to admire people from a distance. As Colin Fletcher likes to say, I must first apologize for my solitudinarianism.

In spite of such childish prejudice and presumption (or maybe because of it), I'm beginning to cast my eyes toward the Great North, in what small ways I can, and the classic rivers and trackless (if not tract-less) acres of solitude it promises. Which has also helped lead me to this forum. I’ve enjoyed, even in the past few days, peering into the experience herein contained. And I’m eager to learn from you all, even if I never wrap my sleeping bag up in linseed oiled canvas, even if I would most likely hurt myself if I carried an ax, even if attempting a roll with a boatful of Duluth packs sounds like suffocating in a pile of wet towels. I’m always, just like the rest of you, on my way out there to where I’d rather be, falling down some fine ribbon of water, between a few hills, under a couple clouds, for as long as possible.

Thanks ahead of time and whatever you do, don’t take me too seriously.

Joe.
 

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Welcome aboard, Joe. Sounds like a wonderful world you live in. Hope you stick around here for a while.

Alan
 
Greetings! We're not all canvas packers, some of us are high tech, and some us live in both worlds. We're canoe swingers, so to speak, we'll hang with anyone in a canoe (except for kayaks, those are the Devil's craft, no offence meant now that you've crossed over from the dark side).
 
Welcome,

The Cheat, Gauley, and New are great white water rivers and great fishing on the flat sections I hear. I have loose plans for the Shenandoah and Potomac, but for tripping I keep heading North. Royalex, Composite, Wood Canvas, and dare I say HDPE kayaks for white water. All have their place out there.

Cheers,

Barry
 
Hey ho hey ho. Great rivers indeed, them three. With many miles of waterway--both white and otherwise--upon which to trek, or quite possible trip. The upper reaches of some of the many branches of the branches of the forks of the Potomac like down near Seneca are certainly worthy of the canoe and paddle, though the great and national majesty of the river herself does little to flutter my heart. In some respects the Potomac Herself feels a little bit like my Jeep: old and tired, beatdown and smelling slightly of exhaust but nonetheless carrying on with a kind of weary weight towards the sea.

But so if I might here raise a question, so's I don't inadvertently make a tool of myself by assuming certain definitions within this forum, and raise what will likely be for me a sort of embarrassing question, I might ask the fire: What makes a canoe trip a Trip (with a capital T)? As in, say, I am heading off canoe tripping on the Cheat (which has some miles, as I'm sure you know), or, I am canoe tripping on the Moise (slightly more miles, slightly further North). Obviously I won't be in a kayak. But somehow I don't feel like I can say that I'm canoe tripping if I'm running the thirty-some-odd miles of the Tye River, forty minutes from my house. I mean, I can SAY it, but there will be snickers. It doesn't really compute (even with me). Even if it takes me three days I'm really just "running a river." Just. (You know what I mean.) Canoe camping. But then I might be "canoe tripping" on the boundary waters for six hours and be home for supper...

Must I be north of the states (excepting Maine, of course)? Must the journey be greater than, say, 100 kilometers? 200? Must it last no fewer than five days? Ten? Is there even such a list of qualifications or is it something more metaphysical? spiritual, even? Maybe a certain attitude or a whole cadre of attitudes? Is it merely tradition? Merely. (You know what I mean.) I'm curious, despite that the question itself may be sort of self-defeating.

Obviously there is a sense in which I'm merely playing with semantics, but I'm doing so out of a deep respect, even if it does sound like I'm walking into a Church asking, "Who is this God guy anyway?" (Which I would do, were I to somehow end up in a church.)

Joe
 
Don't think you'll find to many snobs here, a canoe trip is any time spent in a canoe. It's up to the supplicant to determine the level of suffering, but it is usually not related to hours spent in the saddle. I used to be a dedicated masochist who clicked off klikometers like a metronome, but I've slowly changed into more of a flower sniffing pat the dog kind a guy. It's all relative to your state of being, as long as it's in a canoe and not one of the those DIRTY KAYAK THINGS. Just kidd'n. Some people here use the Devil's Double Blade to paddle their canoes too, and although I'm firmly a single stick kinda guy, I wouldn't refuse a beer from them if they offered.
 
What do you want out of a trip? Like Memaquay, my needs have changed over the years. For reference I'm a 1957 model. In the car world I'd be a thirty footer (looks good at thirty feet away). My carfax would scare off most potential buyers. My trips to the BWCA are probably lower case t's. I go to experience the area and experience me in that environment. I usually go solo. Going solo mentally doubles the "t" factor in my case.
 
Some people here use the Devil's Double Blade to paddle their canoes too, and although I'm firmly a single stick kinda guy, I wouldn't refuse a beer from them if they offered.

That really isn't saying much Mem. You've never refused a beer in your life.
 
When does a paddle become a trip, become a journey? I'm not much for definitions these days, preferring to blur the lines and ignore the rules. It wasn't til you asked the "what is a canoe trip?" question that I had the nerve to seek a definition. I say nerve because when I pulled up a log to sit at this friendly fire I felt undeserving of including myself in the "tripping crowd" category. A "canoe camper" felt more suitable and of a lower order in my imagined hierarchy of storied adventures. Anyway, seeking pedantic answers felt like putting on ill-fitting clothes for a night out with ill-tempered people, but I sought answers anyway. It seems the all-knowing internet defines canoe tripping as travelling by canoe for several days, combining camping, canoeing and long distance travel, and is synonymous with canoe camping, canoe expedition and canoe touring. Nothing like a vague definition to muddy the waters. And seeing as how several means more than two but less than a lot, well the waters just get murkier by the minute.
All my babble is to say that I gave up trying to define this thing we do, however and whomever chooses to pin a name tag to it. All I do know is that my own paddles are trips and indeed journeys, which start late at night at my kitchen table gazing into maps like magic portals to another paddling and portaging world. And my journey continues through choppy waters, quiet streams and smoky evening fires, eventually ending back at my kitchen table and my magic maps once again. I paddle, trip and journey, whatever the definitions might say. I look forward to hearing of yours Joe, and welcome to the fire. P8091111.jpg
 
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Nice Brad. When you expound on one of your thought's, I always imagine you sitting at a desk in Bag End writing with a quill pen. Maybe it's because some of our other conversations here around the fire in the past. After reading your thought's, I might be a canoe camper as well. I don't plan on changing or trying to "upgrade". I'm getting too old for that.
 
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I have no doubt you're a canoe tripper Rip. Be-danged the definitions I say. But for my own peace/piece of mind I consider my weekenders to be sojourns, and anything longer are trips...but they're all journeys. They all take place both outside my gunnels as well as inside, and especially inside my daydreaming mind. I'm pretty sure you can relate to that. We should take a trip sometime.
 
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