Recent content by alsg

Rocky Rips were thrilling to swim! Sorry I couldn't get you a photo for you, but I had my paddle in one hand and my stern painter in the other as I tried to dodge boulders and tried to keep track of where my gear was floating off to. Great map!

Sapele is another good choice. Looks like mahogany, works like mahogany, but far cheaper than many domestic woods, and not endangered.

Scarf joint is your friend.

I once used my wife's yoga weights in a duffle bag on a local day trip. Then I realized a large, empty dry bag weighs nothing to portage and and can be filled with varying amounts of water to adjust trim.

Just take up whitewater canoeing. Every whitewater canoeist "goon" strokes on whitewater except they call it "the river J". The theory is it is a much stronger steering/prying stroke in moving water. EDIT PaddlingPitt beat me to it.

Those are Banana Buggies. At least that's what the Saturday morning kids tv show called them. They make multiple appearances in this video.

I don't cook over an open fire very often. But I always have a fire after dinner when tripping with a human companion. Great for shooting the breeze. When tripping solo or with the dog, I might have a fire 50% of the time. Of course it is a lot of work to gather, cut and split the wood.

Wind. There are no gradient waves at that part of the Potomac.

Nope.

Ok, ppine, have it your way. It was a magical, nearly river-wide (over 2000 feet across) eddy that neither I nor any of the other paddlers noticed that day or the combined thousands of other times this group of paddlers have crossed that river at exactly that spot.

ppine: I've paddled that section of the Potomac dozens of times. Some of the paddlers I was with that day had paddled it for over thirty years and hundreds if not over 1000 times. Nobody had experienced anything like it before or since. It's not tidal at that area and there aren't any...

Mem, you forgot the one about snakes. Definitely a lot of "fearsome animal" click bait on the site of late.

Seems like the thread title "Northern WI wolf attack" is a slight bit of hyperbole as the wolves approached but never did actually attack anyone before the teen shot one. Not saying the wolves didn't have the intent to attack or that the teen overreacted. We just don't know enough. There are...

It was with my dog, Berkeley, but he was not interested in finding out what the noise was. Or maybe he knew and decided he'd stay in the tent and let me handle the situation. It resolved itself without any major injuries. I wrote a trip report explaining what happened, but here's the relevant...

That 20ft White Guide copy is a handsome boat. I have often thought of using the 20' White Guide plans that are in Gil Gilpatricks book on cedar strip canoe building and seeing if they cold be used to build a form for making a cedar/canvas replica.