Most hull abusive trips?

[Black_Fly]

Tried the upper stretches of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland (in Tennessee) in loaded trippers. Beautiful river. Mean rocks. In fact, one's called the Cheese Grater. None of us, or our boats, emerged unscathed from that trip. We didn't like that one.

Man, you’ve gone and peaked my interest.

 

[Chip]

Somewhere around the Bentonville stretch of the Shenandoah, we bit off a lot more paddling than we had daylight. The shuttle went a long way on 340, a mostly straight road, and I knew the river is decidedly not straight. I questioned my friend, wasn’t it going to be a lot of river miles? He said no problem, and I regarded this guy as a real “river man,” so I trusted.

as the light was fading, we stopped and asked some fishing folks if the take out was nearby. I distinctly recall them saying “I hope you brought a flashlight.”

It got dark. That part of the Shenandoah is not difficult to paddle, but there are a lot of ledges, and it was dark and moonless. Wham! There’s a ledge. Drag over. Bam! Drag over the next ledge. And so it went. For hours. Wham! Drag. We reached the takeout about midnight.

The OT Tripper we paddled came with factory installed skid plates, disparaged by many canoe aficionados. I’m sure we left a lot of royalex on the ledges as we dragged over, but can’t imagine the toll that night would have taken on a hull without skid plates.