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The upper Connecticut River isn’t a real wilderness river. It flows past more cow farms and corn fields than wilderness. The campsites are often tucked into the narrow stretch of woods between the river and the farms, but they are usually well maintained with a picnic table, fire ring and privy...

Planning a trip next weekend on the Connecticut River. I just went to the Connecticut River Paddler Trail site to put some sites in the campsite registry, but couldn't find it. Is it gone? I know nothing was guaranteed and not everyone used it, but it was still nice to have.

After my overnight trip on the Oswegatchie, I joined my local club (RICKA) for some base camping and day trips. The base camp was at Eaton Lake Campground. I was able to do three trips: Henderson Lake Henderson Lake sits on the edge of the High Peaks Wilderness Area and is the “official”...

I am just back from a week in the Adirondacks. The trip started with 4-days/3-nights on the Oswegatchie. We did an up-and-back from Inlet to High Falls. We had three solo boats – a Guide, a Penobscot 15 and a Yellowstone Solo. If anyplace deserves the name “beaver-dam-land”, this is it. We...

I know, I go here a lot, but it is fun to run whitewater in the summer. With all the rain we have had recently there were actually other rivers up this weekend (Westfield, Housatonic), but Fife was closer for me. I did another tandem run in my 40-year-old Mohawk Whitewater 16 with Aaron as my...

I have had a sore knee since December that has made it impossible to kneel in my canoes. Doctors initially told me it was arthritis and recommended physical therapy and NSAIDS. Physical therapy has gotten me to the point that I no longer take the NSAIDS and has pretty much eliminated the pain...

There has been a hole in my fleet for a while now. I have a Kevlar Spirit II with bucket seats that is a great lake cruiser and will carry a lot of gear. I also have a Mohawk Whitewater 16 that is great for poling and moving water, but really isn’t big enough for tripping (at least the way I...

It has become a summer tradition for my local club - our annual overnight camping trip on the Pawcatuck River. We load up big canoes with lots of wood and way too much food and gear, and head out to a riverside campsite in the Burlingame Management Area for the night. This year we had 11 campers...

I have done many runs on the Fife Brook Section of the Deerfield River in my WW solo (22 to be exact), but I had never done a tandem run until this weekend. Some friends are doing a Canadian trip this summer on the Mountain River and wanted to get some whitewater practice. Unfortunately, I...

Until my trip on the West Branch of the Penobscot this was a theoretical question. This is not a place where you would expect to have a swim since it is almost all flatwater, but we did. There is a short section of quickwater toward the end of Big Island. We went up on a rock, and over we went...

Just back from my first trip on the West Branch of the Penobscot. We put in at Lobster Stream and took out at Umbazooksus West in the northeast corner of Lake Chesuncook - 5 days, 4 nights with a stop at Lobster Lake. Weather was fine - sunny and windy during the day, chilly at night, but very...

I live in RI, but I love paddling in CT. There are so many nice rivers in east/central CT. The big ones get paddled a lot – the Quinebaug, the Natchaug, the Willimanitc, the Farmington. But there are lots of smaller tributaries to these bigger rivers that don’t get paddled as often. I got on...

The good thing about living in southern New England is that we can usually paddle all winter. The bad thing is that we rarely get enough snow for snowshoeing. This year, the temps have been too cold for paddling, but we’ve had snow on the ground for the last few weeks. Last weekend we got about...

How many days with temps in the teens does it take to freeze a river? Based on this weekend’s experience, the answer is three. For the past couple of years, our local club has been doing a winter overnight at the Burlingame Canoe Campsites on the Pawcatuck River in Charlestown, RI. It’s been a...

Its that time of year when dam operators across the northeast drawdown water levels in reservoirs in anticipation of winter's snow and rain. A lot of these drawdowns are scheduled on weekends so whitewater paddlers can take advantage of the release. Yesterday was the second weekend for the...

Scheduled releases on the Fife Brook section of the Deerfield River end in October. With three weeks of travel for work coming up, I knew I would have to go this weekend if I wanted to catch one. When I saw a trip on the MOC Facebook group, I decided to join. We had a group of 6 - 2 canoes, 2...

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/resources/repository/AccidentSummary_Jan-June_2025.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawM6EbBleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFEM1U4NVI1ZmNTeDlPRXczAR4jBQ7WIli0XQHoLRkSs4TJYhCa8kClnE_f-Cek-pkB3LiqDhbNJe6p8naRTQ_aem_0khzxXAAzKVK1sk1jBMlOg 25 fatal accidents reported 14 involved...

We had a great trip last week on the Allagash. We did the section from Churchill Dam to Michaud Farm with a day to explore the lakes. The weather was great - sunny days and chilly nights making for misty mornings on the water. Water level was a little low, so we spent a lot of time dodging rocks...

I'm off to the Allagash next week, but really didn't have the right boat. My Mohawk Whitewater 16 is a barge, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to paddle my composite Spirit II down Chase Rapids, or drag it through the shallows that we will probable hit next week. Fortunately, we were able to...

There are rivers that aren’t too difficult if you take the right lines, but can be brutal if you don’t. I was on one of these rivers on Saturday – the Dead in ME, and I paid the price for a bad line on the last rapid - Lower Poplar. My first swim of the year. The Dead is one of the longest...