Valuable things you've lost on canoe trips

"Valuable" can mean something of monetary or sentimental value.

I'm going to construe canoe trip very loosely for myself in this thread.

Maggie and I drove to Lake George, NY, in the Adirondacks last week to leaf peep and paddle bark canoes with Rogers' Rangers. I believe this is a picture of us with our Mohican paddlemates, but I'm not positive because of WHAT HAPPENED to the phone camera that took the picture.



The next day, we drove up to the top of Prospect Mountain, which has an almost 360° view of the Lake George area. We got in free because we are old. Yay, saving money on Prospect Mountain!

Reconstructing what happened, we were taking selfies with our camera phones at the walled pedestrian overlook at the top of the mountain. I must have put my Google Pixel 9 Pro on the wall while we became distracted by chatting with and taking pictures with another couple.



Then, we walked to another area of the wall, I sat at a picnic table for a while, and we finally went back to our car. I immediately realized I didn't have my phone.

We looked all over the car. No phone.

We went back to every place we had been along the wall. No phone.

Gerry, a 77-year-old park ranger, took notice of our distress and helped look all around the wall and picnic table area. No phone.

I finally realized that I could use an app on Maggie's phone that's called something like Find Your Phone or Find Hub. It showed my phone a fair distance OVER the wall about 500 yards from any place that we had been along the wall. And in that area OVER the wall is a steep cliff covered with boulders, bushes and leaves. I and the younger Gerry went over the wall to look. No phone.

Maggie recruited three passing teens (who could actually walk without falling over) to cliff scramble. No phone.

After two hours, we gave up and missed a lake tour on the steamboat Mohican. No phone.

The next day we drove to the Spectrum Store in Glens Falls, where I bought a new Google Pixel 11 Pro XL that was on sale.

That trip cost me an extra $800 and every sentimental thing on my lost phone.

It remains a mystery how my phone could have disappeared off the wall within 20 minutes of my leaving it there, and how in blazes it ended up far OVER the wall 500 yards from where we had been. Any theories?

Anyway, back to the regular program, tell us about things you have lost on more genuine canoe trips.

[P.S. Lake George is called Horican in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.]

Somewhere in Woodland Caribou Park is a watch of mine and a pair of sunglasses belonging to my son. It was a cheap watch and I imagine the strap failed; it wasn't there at the end of a portage.
With the sunglasses it was my son wiping his head and face with a wet cloth while his sunglasses were perched up on his head!

I lost a wonderful Bulova watch at a put-in for a daytrip for the wife’s girl group. Kept perfect time, waterproof for 14 years. My new Citizen Ecodrive is just as solid, and has a double lock on the bracelet clasp.

Ray Ban Aviators in Sylvania during a rollover and Oakley Fuel Cells in the BWCA when unshouldering a canoe in the muck.

If only there was a way to keep them from falling so far from my head when dislodged...

Tryin' said:

Ray Ban Aviators in Sylvania during a rollover and Oakley Fuel Cells in the BWCA when unshouldering a canoe in the muck.

If only there was a way to keep them from falling so far from my head when dislodged...

Click to expand...

You could always wear a cone like this. I’m surprised it’s not patented. Hey, that might just be a million dollar idea! I’ll call it the “Glass Catcher.” Comes with a braided parachute cord collar for comfort and survival purposes.

This is why I wear cheap sunglasses. Some of those have been the ones someone else lost before I found them. A recent pair, I fished from the bottom of the Teton River. That should tell you how clear that water is.

Surprisingly, I can't think of any time I've lost sunglasses on the (liquid) water. Skiing the backcountry in deep powder OTOH, those things disappear forever the second you drop them. And that's why I also carry a (cheap) spare.

That's a bummer Glenn. I believe you also lost a camera up in Ak.

I lost a camera on a river trip in Ak one time. I set the camera up for a self timer shot and never picked it up afterwards.

Glenn MacGrady said:

It remains a mystery how my phone could have disappeared off the wall within 20 minutes of my leaving it there, and how in blazes it ended up far OVER the wall 500 yards from where we had been. Any theories?

Click to expand...

First thing I thought of was a crow or raven grabbing it and flying off, dropping it shortly after. Probably realized it was an outdated Pixel model.

The Cree River stole my favorite hiking pole. The Sherlock Trekker. And they don’t make them anymore. Just lifted it right off my wrist as I was making my way through some deep water.

I have NEVER lost anything on a canoe trip!!
However, I have strategically stashed some equipment in obscure places.
For example, I have stored a Buck sheath knife at the bottom of Stillwater Reservoir.
I also keep an 8x monocular at the bottom of Brandreth Lake outlet.

Tough break about your phone, Glenn. Although I don't know exactly how accurate those "find my phone" apps are...

a few years back I and a friend went to a massively popular paddler's event after the event we had a massive cloudburst as we were packing up, so I set the canoe beside the car and tossed all the straps in the bottom (it was on a cart) and into my Tilley (a 10th anniversary gift from my wife) to keep them together, after the storm both the hat and all my straps were gone, while the dry bag with our cameras, phones, wallets, etc, was still there. there was no wind to blow it away and not enough water to wash it away, but there WERE dozens of paddlers and spectators running past my truck, ever since, every time I see someone wearing a similar Tilley, I stop and take a good look

I lost a Votrex monocular (8x36 IIRC) on the portage between Santoy & Pike Lakes on my Steel River trip. It almost had to happen when I set the packs down for a rest where the trail splits but I was 3 portages on when I noticed so I didn't go back to look. (Lifetime warranty if anyone cares to look... I can probably give you GPS coordinates & "finders keepers" is OK by me.)

I also lost a GoPro camera with head mount about 2 days later. Not much footage on that sd card (and I've never done anything with all of the other footage from that trip) so it wasn't a great loss; I just felt bad garbaging up such a pretty area.

I replaced the monocular but not the GoPro (at least, not yet).

I think I found everything else although I've backtracked a few portages for some of it.

Sorry about the phone. Was there no service up there that it wouldn't ring when you called it?

I lost an expensive watch on the Magalloway River below Aziscohos Lake in Maine during the 1970s while making a hard turn on the biggest drop in the run. However, I was using a double paddle in one of those small covered plastic boats that can't be mentioned here, so never mind...

Benson

I lost some good binoculars and a nice straw hat at Ruby Marshes in Nevada when my friends wild kid jumped on the gunwale and went over the side.

Never lost anything on a lake trip.
Many capsizes on river trips. Most equipment was secured and stayed in the boat.
A friend of mine sank his canoe on the John Day River. He was paddling solo and took some equipment from other boats, but it was not tied in. We got nearly everything back by eddy shopping.

My Seattle Sombrero blew out of the back of my canoe while crossing a windy lake. I didn't think it was that big of a deal at the time but I didn't realize that 1 1/2 weeks of rain and cold were too ensue and I sure missed it.

I think that's the only thing I've lost. I've found more than I've lost (paddle, fillet knife, tent stakes, water bottles). I left the paddle and filet knife where I found them in case someone might come along that actually needed them.

Alan

My wife has lost her phone on the last two trips. I've vowed to put all phones in bright orange cases and carry a scuba mask in the canoe from now on.

Time. ( I am not intending to get churchey here.) Over the past few years we've bailed on several trips, either altogether, or by shortening them; and so we've lost time we'll never get back. In fact I try not to think about how often we've paddled out of a trip with home beyond the horizon in front of us and bluebird skies above, liquid sheet of glass below. But the drives home were lovely. lol
I'm sure we've probably misplaced items, but having a very poor memory I can't for the life of me remember what those were now. In the long scheme of things, they were just stuff. Even special mementoes, though touchstones of a life well lived, are merely material things.
We have lost very precious personal things (but not on canoe trips), and despite the sharp lingering pain you learn to live with it.
Recently I rewarded a local optometrist with two friendly visits. She rewarded me with a beautiful pair of driving glasses, at an eye watering price. Fortunately my wife's insurance took some sting out of the price shock. I don't need them terribly to drive, but distant signs can pose a challenge for me, so these swell glasses are in my future; if I could just get up the nerve to pick them up from my dresser, take them out to the car, and wear the darned things. They cost twice what I paid for a set of new tires. What if I sit on them? What if I lose them?
I may have to just learn to live with them.

My pack tied to a thwart was still there when we retrieved the boat the next day, but the river had unzipped and emptied it. It was my buddy’s aluminum canoe, and I remembered a metal fitting attached to a laundry-line painter. My friend said he had removed the fitting, but the painter got lodged on the bottom anyway, abruptly halting the canoe and ejecting the paddlers. We were on the CII, maybe III, East Branch Penobscot.

We stood on the bank watching the canoe slam around in the waves, and tried to figure out a way to free it. We thought we’d need to start upstream, swim to the center, float down to the canoe, and cut the line. Between us we had one jack knife, and I doubted my ability to open the knife with wet hands. Grabbing the canoe while floating by in current seemed possible, but I was concerned about possibly ripped aluminum slicing off fingers. In the end, we decided to get gear and come back the next day.

The canoe owner’s brother came with us the following day. He turned out to be a real river cat. He took a look to where the now submerged canoe was occasionally surfacing, grabbed a sturdy branch, and demonstrated rapid walking with the branch bracing on the bottom. He got out to the boat and flipped it upright, got in, cut the line and jumped up on the gunwales to paddle the boat to a downriver gravel bar. So easy. On the gunwales. Made me feel like a dolt.

The pack had in it my wallet, a VCR camera, and other less valuable stuff. The pack was unzipped. The stuff was gone.

I returned the following day dressed in denim and swimmy goggles and swam that rapid. I searched every eddy behind every rock. The water was very clear. I got a good lesson in the hydrodynamics of rapids. I did not get my stuff back.

lowangle al said:

I believe you also lost a camera up in Ak.

Click to expand...

I did in 2014, and actually on a canoe trip. It was my last day in Alaska; my plane left Anchorage after midnight. That afternoon I soloed a Penobscot rented from REI on Portage Lake, just outside Anchorage, slaloming around the small icebergs that were calving off the Portage Glacier.

After the lake paddle, I stopped to photo the Portage River, and (reconstructing what must've happened) put the camera on the SUV roof while I had some business in the local woods. It fell off the vehicle somewhere en route back to Anchorage. I backtracked for hours along the Seward Highway and Portage Glacier Road . . . but . . . no camera.

After getting home, I read the lost and found section of the Anchorage newspaper for a couple of weeks but never saw mention of a found camera. My entire and only Alaska trip is photographically gone.

tketcham said:

First thing I thought of was a crow or raven grabbing it and flying off, dropping it shortly after.

Click to expand...

Gerry's wife suggested a bald eagle. I think it was likely some kids who picked it up off the wall, walked a ways while deciding what to do with it (use it, sell it, return it), but finally decided to just chuck it over the wall and down the mountainside.

stripperguy said:

I don't know exactly how accurate those "find my phone" apps are...

Click to expand...

I've used the app before and since. It located other phones within a few feet.

Gamma1214 said:

Sorry about the phone. Was there no service up there that it wouldn't ring when you called it?

Click to expand...

That's the first thing I tried, and tried it many times, but the phone never rang and just went immediately to voicemail. That's another mystery because I never set my phone to do that. Perhaps something broke as a result of the landing.

Odyssey said:

a local optometrist . . . . driving glasses, at an eye watering price. . . . They cost twice what I paid for a set of new tires.

Click to expand...

Expensive lesson learned by me. EssilorLuxottica has an almost world-wide, vertically integrated monopoly on eyeglass frames, lenses, and retail optometry offices. Never buy eyeglasses from the optometrist office. Just get a prescription from the OD and have them also measure your pupillary distance. Then, order eyeglasses online or buy them from Costco, which are not controlled by EssilorLuxottica. I buy my prescription glasses from Zenni Optical online. They cost a fraction of what they would cost in an optometrist office. HERE is their Canadian website.

While I didn’t actually lose it on the canoe trip, I had a micro SD card get damaged after I paddled (and painstakingly took the time to record video of) the Jordan River in the Raquette Boreal Forest on a solo trip this summer. The worst part is I was halfway through editing the footage when the card failed. I think one of my kids set a book on the edge of the card while it was in the card reader. I hadn’t yet backed up the files on the computer so the entire video was lost. It was shaping up to be a good memory too. I had other clips on that card of summer trips with the kids that I’ll never get back. You live and you learn. Back up your memory cards people.

I lost the first paddle I ever bought (from Dave Curtis) on my first whitewater day trip in a solo canoe with @NoelCanoeDad in Connoquenessing Creek after flipping in a rapid. Dustin broke his arm in that same rapid, so I got off easy.

I also dropped my phone in the creek that day in about 7 feet of the darkest water you’d ever see. I took my life jacket off and went under for it a few times before finally finding it.