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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...

On most of the trips I do, everyone takes turns cooking groups meals. Just curious how common that is.

How is this for camp food: Saturday night dinner Salsa and chips Charcuterie and cheese Cedar-planked brie with crusty baguettes Italian sausage with spicy zucchini Steak Frites (steak and fries) Watermelon Carrot cake Sunday breakfast Dutch oven cinnamon rolls Bacon, eggs, sausage and...

It has been a while since I have been out on a real camping trip. This one was short (4 days, 3 nights) but it had a little bit of everything. We did the section of Baskehegan Stream in Maine from White Farm Road in Topsfield to the dam in Danforth. The original plan was to go down to Bancroft...

We got some rain on Saturday that brought my local rivers up, so I decided to stay local and paddle a section of my home river – the Blackstone. At one time, the Blackstone must have been a pretty good whitewater river with a 400-foot drop over 40-miles. Pretty much the entire river got dammed...

Why not. Here is one of my local paddling friends running the class III Gorge Drop on the Knightville section of the Westfield River. Asked him if he thought he could do it loaded with gear - he seemed pretty confident.

I'm not much of a racer, but there is one race in CT that I have done several times - the Scantic Spring Splash downriver race. Its a 5-mile race - mostly quickwater with 4 class II+ (maybe III) rapids in the second half. I've done it many times in my solo boat, so this year decided to try it...

We had a lot of rain around here this week, so I got out to do some whitewater paddling on the Upper Millers. It a 7-mile class II/III run with a lot of rocks to dodge and eddies to catch. We had a big group – 4 canoes and 10 kayaks. Few pictures here...

If you are looking for whitewater in RI, the Clear/Branch is pretty much it. It's a 7-mile run with 3 easy class II rapids. My local club (RICKA) ran a race on this river on the 3rd Saturday in March from 1980 until 2005. It was discontinued when insurance became to expensive and river access...

After a long cold snap, the forecast was for warming weather on Sunday. We put-out the word, and got a group together for a trip down the Wood-Pawcatuck in RI – three boats, four paddlers, all canoes. It was like “river church”. It was a short run – only 5-miles. The river was at a nice level...

2024 was a pretty good paddling year of me – 54 trips with a good split between flatwater (19), whitewater (15) and sea kayak (18). What I didn’t get to do much of was camping – only 2 overnight trips. For 2025, I want to keep doing what I’m doing, but also get out on a couple of longer camping...

Not exactly sure where to put this, but it was winter and we were camping, so I’ll put it here. Last year I got together with some other members of our local club (RICKA) to do a year-end, overnight camping trip the last weekend in December. We had five campers on that trip and had a great...

You’re probably not going to believe this, but its true. I saw Santa Claus, and he was not in a sleigh being pulled by reindeer. He was in a canoe - a red canoe. Here’s what happened. It was Christmas Eve a couple of years ago. I had finished all my shopping, so I decided to take my canoe out...

I don’t get out poling as much as I’d like to, but I was able to get out for a (day early) Winter Solstice Poling Cruise on the Nashua River. We did the section on the North Branch of the Nashua River from Leominster to Lancaster (MA). The river was about 2.5 feet on the Leominster gage - a...

A lot of posts here with folks looking for advice on composite boats – especially solo river runners. My first thought on seeing these posts is to recommend looking for a used Royalex boat, but I know they are hard to find. When I started paddling back in 2004 there was a nice group of solo...