Recent content by ReluctantFarmer

That's pretty cool (or hot!); I think having more water was key and I imagine you scrapped less?

The problem with Hosea B, other than my inability to reliably spell the name, is really that there’s no flat spot except right by the picnic table. If you hammocking and solo, it might be fine, but my hammock is in my car back at Allagash. So I take the spot literally right by the picnic table...

For life reasons that nobody cares about, I’ve been trying hard to get back into canoe camping this summer after a winter that wasn’t very fun. The capstone of my plan has been a solo trip down the river half of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. I got 5 days off and planned to spend 4 nights...

I'll write up the whole thing, but just got back from this trip. For the next person googling, the water levels were around 600 cf/s the whole time. There were sections before Michaud farm and below Allagash falls (especially near the end of the waterway) where I was hitting the bottom 10 times...

What was the rest of the river like, and how low?

Already way below 1000. Fast approaching 700. If the pattern holds we'll be at 500 on Monday. Maybe I'm fooling myself but I'm thinking I really only need 3.5" in a solo canoe, and maybe the dire warnings about 500 cfs don't apply to me. Extremely reluctant to change plans here but I may live...

With a week or so left, it looks like flow rate is trending down rapidly, but there’s at least a little rain in the forecast. Still trying to decide if I’m going to run my composite boat through Chase Rapids; thinking at 1200 I will, below that, no. I’ve ended up with a full 4 nights free...

I’m driving a WRX and they literally don’t come with spares anymore, not even a donut. I might get one this year but it’ll mean buying an OEM wheel and needing to do 5-wheel rotation to keep the 4WD happy. In the mean time I’m avoiding the Golden Road like a plague. It’s expensive enough that...

Sounds like a great trip. I’ve also been eyeing this one for August or early September, probably with the same outfitter vans (as slate roads scare my thin car tires).

I'm planning a solo trip up the Allagash Wilderness Waterway at a specific, can't-move week in July, and wondering if there's any specific advice for trying to navigate the river during its peak popularity. How bad is going to be finding a campsite? Should I think about packing both a tent and...

Really excited to read that report and very happy this was indeed possible.

Drying out the boundary boots is a real problem. I’ve been hanging them but it often isn’t enough for the insides. Good pictures!

Definitely getting too focused on my technology is a concern. I'm already spending a lot of time looking through a camera and maybe don't really need another screen.

Does anyone use an Apple Watch or a Garmin Watch (or something else) on trips? I normally wear an Apple Watch Ultra (which I used for fitness paddling over the winter) but it doesn't really seem to have the battery for long trips, and the maps are fairly iffy. I'm thinking about one of the...

If I’m being honest, I don’t think that the dry suit was really necessary on this trip. None of the fishermen I ran into were even wearing paddling jackets. I was mostly wearing the suit and lightweight long underwear, with no midlayer this trip and it was still warm. But it is nice to be dry...