Anyone else ever had to bale from a trip in a similar fashion?
Yes, in similar and other fashions.
River Trip. My hunting partner and I ran the pre-dawn shuttle and left his car at the downstream end. A little rim ice around the edge of the river, but no worries. Drove to the upstream end, a little rim ice around the edge of the river, but no worries. Paddled a couple miles downriver, solid ice from bank to bank for miles downstream.
We pulled, dragged and carried the canoes back upriver to my truck, reran the shuttle and I was back home in bed before my wife woke up.
Another trip on the same river. Met some friends for a group trip there. It was pouring rain and the river was approaching flood stage. We stood around under a bridge overpass at the launch kinda hemming and hawing. No one wanted to be the first guy to bail out, but it was the unspoken elephant under the bridge. As we were waiting each other out for someone to state the obvious a huge tree rolled sideways downriver, with large leafy branches rising windmill like from the depths.
There was a group utterance of
Oh hell no! and we all drove home.
Lake Trip. The worst lake trip ever. I was on a meandering roadtrip through New England and decided to stop at the Green River Reservoir in Vermont to paddle in and camp for a day or two. It was, admittedly, a beautiful fall weather Saturday. I did not appreciate what that really meant.
I got the last available parking spot, and when I went to get a permit, the
only open camping site. That last available site has been an omen of bad things to come in the past, and I should have noped the hell out right then.
I packed up and paddled in. It is not an especially large reservoir, so I paddled around some of the perimeter first, and there were some very nice looking sites. There were also an increasing number of boats, of all kinds, canoes and kayaks, SOTS and paddle boards, out on the water, which seemed curious since I got the last parking spot. I did not know that the local outfitters drop off trailer loads of paddlers throughout the day as a limited parking work around.
I got to my site to discover that it had a horribly difficult landing, full of fallen trees and muck. The only way to get ashore was to exit the canoe 10 feet from the bank and balance on slippery fallen logs. Getting gear out of the boat was going to be a challenge, but I took one pack with me to start.
The
site was the size of a twin bed and had, I kid you not, a literal freshet of water running
directly through the fire pit. The rest of the site was shoe sucking mud. I found one teeny area back in the woods where I might squeeze in my tent if I sawed off a few branches.
I actually thought about staying. For a good 60 seconds. Fortunately I had only unloaded the one pack.
Screw this nonsense, back to the launch. I saw
hundreds of boats on the short trip back. The launch was a complete zoo, with dozens of boats waiting to put on, gear strewn everywhere, kids swimming directly in front of the launch and more boats arriving by the minute. I had to wait 20 minutes for an opportunity to come ashore.
Packed my truck and drove away. I was on the road again by noon. That trip was a fine meander through New England; I got to paddle in the Adirondacks, New Hampshire and Maine (and see DougD) but one of the happiest moments was driving the hell away from Green River Reservoir. I did not even know where I was headed next*, and did not even stop to contemplate a map until I had some distance and regained my composure.
*Pillsbury State Park NH, great little pocket park with a couple small lakes. I got a site where the open end of the tripping truck was 20 feet from the lake, and the previous occupants had left a pile of split hardwood. Yin/yang.
A completely different trip than planned. We were fully packed up for a multi-day downriver family camper in western Maryland/WVA. Four tripping canoes on the van, paddles, tents, and tripping gear all well selected and dry bagged. We always packed at least the night before so we could make a predawn getaway.
I had been watching the weather and the gauges. It had been wet, was forecast to continue wet and the gauges had been slowly rising. Nothing we can not handle, and we should have good water.
I checked the weather and gauge one last time the morning before we left. Good Lord, it is pouring buckets throughout the drainage area, and the gauge shot straight up overnight near flood stage and rising. We did not have a Plan B, but decided to head east instead to the DelMarVa peninsula to car camp and day paddle at a riverside State Park we had never seen.
That proved to be a beautiful, empty (one other camper during our stay) park, and we paddled day trips on three different rivers and creeks.
The switch from mountain river tripping to coastal plain car camping meant different everything, different boats and paddles, different tents and gear. I usually spend the better part of a week packing, an hour here and an hour there. I learned that I could unpack and repack boats and gear for four people in an hours time. I did not enjoy it, but I can do it.
One last trip, where we did not bail but should have. Group trip on my local dam fed homeriver. I had been watching the gauge and it had stayed just above canoe zero for most of the week. Routine changes to the dam release (usually) occur on Friday mornings. I checked the gauge Friday night and again on Saturday morning before I left the house, still low but good to go.
When we got to the put in the river looked suspiciously low, but not much different than canoe zero. That launch is on a shallow gravel bar and always looks low. While we were putting on a trout fisherman mentioned
The river is mighty low boys, you sure you got enough water? I agreed it was low, but thought
Hey, I know my stuff, I checked the gauge just an hour ago.
100 yards downstream from the cars we started walking. And we kept walking, wading, pulling and dragging the canoes downstream, largely on my assurances
It will get deeper.
It did not, if anything it got lower and lower as whatever residual bubble drained away. We had a nice long 6 mile
It will get deeper walk down the river. I looked at the gauge when we got home from our wet foot hiking trip. They had, for the first time ever, cut the dam release back to a trickle on a Saturday morning. I use 2.8 feet on that gauge as canoe zero. By the time we ran the shuttle and launched it was well below canoe zero and falling fast. It hit 0.85 feet before we finished
