Recent content by VA paddler

AMC has another book that is fairly comprehensive of Maine rivers. And it has a few pages of lists at the beginning that break out rivers by # of days, season, and levels of ww. “Wilderness” is subjective, of course, but I’d say the StJohn is about the most remote-feeling of the longer river trips.

Any Costco chicken that shows up Saturday night at our hook-up is unlikely to survive the late night munchies. As for Canibalism - Recped is safe - the Costco chickens have more meat on their bones than he does.

Did the Machias from 4th Lake to the dam starting 1st of May several years ago. Too much snow to get to 5th lake… The upper portion is very gentle. The best/hardest of the ww is below the Rt9 crossing. Run Airline Rapid - if you do fine, keep going. If that’s challenging for you, hitchhike back...

You beat me to it!

The next multilateral endeavor by the Church of the Blue Dome's International Congregation is nigh... Tichegami River - Eastmain River - side channel to Lac Maree - port into "Moon River" (Misticawassee Creek) - to Rupert Reservoir dam. ~300 kms ; ~3 weeks Just Recped and I this time...

Hello and welcome from South Bristol!

I like those stands!

Yeah, was planning to do the St Croix with my tween & teen daughters starting today but the weather does not look pleasant for the next few days up there. They are definitely fair weather companions. Foiled again… Too bad, was going to be my shake down trip for the summer’s coming adventure.

I use as tie downs when driving. When tripping, tucked somewhere loose so they are quickly free to hand, or floating next to me if I swim.

Is that Lesser Wesser in the top photo?

I guess it all depends on the water you frequent. In relentless ww settings, you want that stuff to stay together, and if you can, have enough rope to swim the rope to shore and then you become the anchor point for your boat which you can gradually haul in, or at least pivot into the shallows...

Oh, my... where to start...? In the late 90s and early 2000s we did all of our trips with 2 Grummans sticking out the back end of my buddy's 197? burnt-orange Dodge pickup. Seems like everything broke on that truck at one point or another but we were always able to fix it on the side of the...

I’m looking forward to reading lots of TRs this summer from this far more familiar family of paddlers.

The Canyon is excellent as a white water tripper but most whitewater trips involve a great deal of flat water, too, and the Canyon does fine.

I bring my iphone and my InReach. InReach gets us weather, verifies paper map orienteering, keeps the wife happy, and is priceless in a bind. Phone gives us tunes, a camera, and an alarm clock. Phone has managed to find some bars in some pretty unexpected places that were life savers. The...