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I’m also a list user. One thing I do a little different is rather than use check marks to indicate each item is packed, I put a letter indicating into what the item is packed. “B” means it’s in the big blue dry bag, “AP” means it’s in the Action Packer box with kitchen stuff, and so forth. I...

Last time I was on Chesuncook was 2008, so this is dated info, but as I recall, you pay your fees at the entry gates. Not sure how you are getting there, or whether you pass through a gate. They didn't take credit cards either, and I don't know if that has changed, so you may need cash. I'm...

I was awakened by blood curdling screams coming from my companion’s tent in the middle of the night. “Are you okay? Do you need help?” I shouted into the darkness. “Yes…Heelllpp, aiiiyeeeeee,…” and so on. She later told me she didn’t know she was capable of screaming like that. She was out of...

Wood makes great poles. Wood is quieter than aluminum and if it’s cold, wood doesn’t suck the heat from your hands the way aluminum does. I’ve never found a good solution for making a two-piece wood pole, and I find the ability to split the pole into 6-foot pieces is convenient and not unusual...

I was thinking I'm a tough guy and I don't take "luxury" items. But then there's the dedicated, single-purpose, awkward to pack, popcorn maker. I don't actually own one, but have packed one in my canoe. CanoeTripping's Will Derness has a fancy one with a crank handle on top that drives a blade...

I had paddled down the Gunpowder River, almost to the marshes at Days Cove. There was a long shallow gravel riffle before hitting tidewater, which I bumped and ground over. I knew I couldn’t paddle back up those riffles. I harvested a chunk of bamboo and used it to pole back upstream. I gues it...

The few times I’ve shopped for gunwales they had to be ordered from the canoe manufacturer, and then you wait until they have a shipment of canoes arriving. Gunwales are as long as canoes, so even though they don’t weigh much, they are costly to ship, unless they toss them in with a shipment of...

I find it takes about three days for my brain to stop interpreting noises as human activity. The leaves rustle and I hear people talking, but there’s nobody there. My favorite tripping sound I hear once only on every trip. It’s the click of the car door closing behind me at the put in. That...

I just did some gel coat repair on my Wenonah Rendezvous, which is also labeled Kevlar 49. There were a couple places near the stems that had chunks missing, and I filled those with gel coat. There are three sets of spider cracks. I have used Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure on the spider...

Thanks for posting the vids—very impressive. How about the crowds? I had no idea canoeing was so popular! A group of paddlers on a trip I was leading on the Potomac stopped by the whitewater course at Dickerson, Md in the early 2000s. There we encountered the Olympic C2 team of Matt Taylor and...

I don't know that much about the Adirondacks. I've paddled Bog River/Lowes, Little Tupper, and areas over on the Lake Champlain side. Also, 20 or more years ago I paddled a chain of 5 or 7 ponds and have forgotten the name of that route. It was perhaps in the St. Regis Area and we didn't...

We spent three days on the Oswegatchie, paddling from Inlet up to High Falls and back. That wasn’t enough time, IMO. I wish we had planned 5 or 6 days. For the record, there were 8 beaver dams. We paddled over 2 and pulled over 6. This must be a water-level dependent statistic. The most...

Thanks for those replies. We thought to go during the week, but there’s a weather window making Friday look like the day to start. I’d hate to get there and find a parking area jammed with vehicles. My friend is in the eastern ‘Daks, over by Champlain and reports they’ve gotten lots of rain...

My friend and I want to paddle and camp the Oswegatchie in the next few days. It's mid-summer. Do we need to worry about crowding? There appear to be quite a few camp sites which makes me think there may be quite a few people. It's been wet there, which I guess means there might be quite a few...

Found kayaks, one in the Potomac and one in the Patuxent. That's not counting two kayaks I found beside the Patuxent, that turned out were stolen from a friend of mine. He was pretty happy to get them back, because he had borrowed them from an outfitter for a church camp and the outfitter's...

Wow. Many, many linear feet of welded seams. She found the plans on the internet! Who puts plans for a 12 foot moose on the internet? How much demand can there be for those plans? Thanks for posting.

"Best of" lists are always disappointing. But look at the methodology and the results make sense. To be considered for the list, the lakes had to be nominated by a panel of top-10 list makers. If you look at the panel-members, none of them were paddlers. There were a good number of fishermen...

On a boatless western trip in 2021, I drove through Michigan’s UP. I saw so many canoes atop vehicles it made me think the UP was canoe Mecca. I returned with canoe in ‘22 and discovered Michigan is great canoe country. Of course, there’s lots of great canoe country. But as the OP notes...

I met a guy while paddling who only paddled on one side. He made his paddle with the grip angled to make it easier on his top hand. He annually won a local whitewater race, paddling on one side. Not sure if he used cross forwards. The point is, switching paddle sides isn’t mandatory. There’s an...

Car camping at Fruita CG in Capital Reef at a tent area which was a large semi open field. The tent was pitched near the truck with a table 30 yards away. I left my Action Packer food box on the table with a couple cook pots on top. Sure enough, a raccoon messed with the box in the middle of the...