Recent content by alsg

I exaggerated a bit. No natural lakes at all in Maryland. Still, I paddled Triadelphia Reservoir many times before it closed to repair the dam, and also Rocky Gorge. They bored me after a while compared to the natural lakes of Maine. I've paddled the flat water down from Fletchers to watch...

The Canoe Cruiser Association of Washington, DC is still alive and kicking and we have a decent number of open solo canoe whitewater paddlers. Sometimes we even outnumber the kayakers. But I'm the youngest of the regulars -- and I'm 60! There's a few others who paddle with Blue Ridge...

Calling any 13 foot canoe a "Prospector" is just a marketing gimmick. I'm not saying it isn't a worthy canoe to consider if you are looking for a lightweight, small, solo canoe. But it has more in common with an Old Town Pack than it does with its namesake.

Walter Matthau and Elaine May in the climatic scene from A New Leaf. Filmed on location at Newsowadnehunk Falls on the West Branch of the Penobscot River.

I think $800 for an Explorer with cold cracks is a lot. My experience is perhaps warped because I paid $100 for an Explorer. Hull only -- all the wood had rotted off. There was a weird dent that may have been from a pin but the hull was otherwise in excellent condition...

It is. The questions are: (1) should we continue to do it in the areas where non-native fish have not yet been introduced and (2) can it be reversed where it has already happened? Here in the DC/MD/VA area someone released snakeheads into some ponds in the early 2000s. Snakeheads are...

If you are there, knowing the current wind speed isn't that important as one can see what the waves are doing. On the other hand, knowing what the wind will be doing (increasing/decreasing/changing direction) in an hour or two or six while you are going to be on the water going from point A-B...

Personally I hate when I travel in the country and see the same dang chain stores and restaurants in every town. And while I don't fish much, I'd rather not have the exact same fish in every river, pond and lake.

Gaia GPS is a superb mapping app for a smartphone. Intuitive map downloads. It's plenty for my type of tripping. But if you are a heavy GPS user out in the bush for weeks, battery life of the phone would be an issue.

The USGS Point of Rocks Gauge just down stream of Whitehorse has water temperature data.

Like a lot of rapids, this one increase with difficulty at certain levels before it washes out. Last weekend there was a lot more/higher wave action. A diagonal curler flipped me.

I swam last Sunday on Whitehorse Rapid in the Potomac below Harper's Ferry. Probably 500 ft to either bank. Water temp 38 F; air temp around 50 F. Not an issue with a drysuit and good merino base layers. Ended up reentering on a mid river rock outcrop. Did have some help wrangling the canoe...

During cold water paddling season, my dry suit lives in one of our unused showers. If it is really dirty or smelly, it goes into the tub with a capful of the appropriate cleaner.

That's a Werner Bandit. The shaft is more black than blue. Must be an artifact of the photo.

As I am most frequently paddling ww these days, my solo since October is a new Esquif Raven (no relationship to the Swift Raven) in blue T-Formex. This was one of my first times out in it on the Cl. II GW canal (Potomac River) just outside of downtown DC (Virginia side).