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Your next canoe trip?

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Sep 2, 2011
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Raymond, ME
Off to the Everglades and Big Bend FL in three weeks..but the trip snuck up on me.. and the camping gear is buried in a shed with doors blocked with ice...aargh.

Anyone getting new gear in prep for their next trip or new to them gear..no matter when the trip?
 
Wife is looking for a small lightweight camp table for our longer camp outs. Looking ahead to our week long hunting trip next winter.
 
Anyone planning or pondering a spring/summer trip out this way will be pleased to know we have hordes of snow already and with how freaking cold it is, it shouldn't go anywhere for awhile. We really need a "normal" spring to fill the lakes and rivers to proper levels after a couple of drought summers.
 
My Mrs Claus and our little elves don't give me too much canoe tripping stuff, because they know how much I like to internet browse, and leave myself post-it notes all over my bedroom mirror. My mirror looks like a colourful shrub. Everyone's helpful posts here add to my education, and planning...and my mirror shrub.
I'm pruning my mirror shrub, and ordering some stuff in the meantime; stuff sacks and a tarp from CCS, a couple of fixed blade knives ...
 
I have more gear than I could ever need. My wife is interested in doing a trip in Algonquin next year... not sure I want to do that when we'll be able to, mid-summer that is. It will be something different for us though.

I'm hoping my first trip will be the forum gathering in May and maybe if I can find a paddling partner for a 3 day loop from Cranberry to Lows to the Oz in early summer. I doubt my wife will want to do that trip.

I've also thought about doing a solo trip from Lila to Little Tupper and stashing my bike to complete the road portion. I'm thinking late September would be ideal for that... wife will be back teaching and the summer crowds will be gone.
 
I've got my usual school trips planned in May and June, but I have one trip in particular that has me pretty excited for next year. For anyone interested in map questing, gonna put in on the Ottertail river off the Ogoki Road, NW of Nakina, ON. Paddle the Ottertail to Ogoki River, down into Ogoki Lake, then into Kayedon Lake. From there, I'm pretty sure I've got a solid lead on a mile long historic portage from kayedon to Kapikotongwa Lake. This port is pretty important, because it opens up a whole bunch of east-west or north south connections. From Kap lake, we head down the Kapikotongwa River through a variety of lakes, eventually coming out on the Kowkash River at Osullivan Lake. I'll probably be posting pics sometime next August.
 
I just got a new sleeping pad. My 2" thermarest takes up too much space in a portage pack for canoeing and always ends up as deck cargo in its own dry bag when kayaking. I got an Exped 7 M synmat which folds down into a SMALL size and takes up a fifth the space. Of course I haven't slept on it yet so ........?
 
After a long winter (back into the 30 below range again for another week) I usually look to head out into the WCPP for a 1 or 2 nighter as soon as break-up happens. Good time to paddle, you can sleep with tent door open because there are still no bugs, but swimming is out of the question.
 
Due to being mostly grounded last year,I am looking foreward to tripping this year more than usual. I have already planned 5 ADK solo trips and My wife and my annual canoe vacation there.
Turtle
 
Not sure about the long weekends yet, but late June we will attempt the Queen Hughes trip again, ran out of water this year. Early September will be Bird River from Manitoba into Snowshoe lake and beyond in Ontario. I really need some smallmouth bass fishing, I miss it. Also hoping to get my first solo trip, but how the shoulder is will determine that.
 
I may be tripping with my son in the BWCA early June for 6 to 10 days. Latter in the month I may go to WCPP with two buddies.

The details have yet to be finalized.

Gavia, where are you going in the BWCA?

Bob.
 
Started a new job a few months ago, so no real quantities of vacation saved up til late summer anyway. I'll be lucky to get home (NY) at all this coming year. However, it is my 50th birthday and there are two ideas in my head right now. I have a cousin (also turning 50) with whom I spent many years in scouts and on family camping trips. He is a good solid woods companion. We have toyed with the idea of a birthday trip in the adirondacks, after labor day, possibly the Whitney Loop (or at least the Low's Lower Dam to Little Tupper portion). If he can't go with me, I am considering a long (for me) solo in the St Regis Canoe Wilderness, revisiting a trip I did a few years ago. If that whole idea totally fails (e.g., family emergency earlier in the year, say an issue with my elderly parents, eats my meager vacation day hoard), I would like to do a 3-day/2-overnighter along a stretch of the Neches River (Big Thicket area) near me in East Texas next fall (cooler). I could drive there and back (vs fly, with the ensuing travelling and packing/unpacking eqpt days) and use up just 1-3 days of vacation, depending on the associated weekend.

This time of year, here in LA, the weather is awesome, so i do more ground trips now, while it's cool... canoeing is more a spring/fall thing... summers are for NY... or staying here (indoors!)
 
Plenty of time paddling in the Adirondacks most every week is a given in any year, partly for backcountry recreational paddling, partly for training for multiple canoe races. The first one is 'Round the Mountain at Saranac Lake shortly after ice-out. Will paddle my 18th 90-miler race this year, but that is at the end of summer. Before that will be a week on Lows Lake training trek leader guides, a Cannonball-90 (90-miler in a day) on the solstice, and a return to the Yukon for another 1000 mile race in July.

A new European friend has me interested in the Great Glen Paddle, a race in Scotland that includes paddling the length of Loch Ness at the end of March, but may be too late now to get ready and set up logistics for that this year. I am also toying with participating in the Wabakini Project for a week this year. Hoping to stay healthy enough for all of that.
 
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Nothing new gear-wise, other than a pair of Chota Marshboots to replace my aging and oft-Aqua-sealed but still leaky Nunavuts. I really prefer water boots with a heel and I bought a pair of oddly never-worn but used (and now-discontinued) Marshboots, which like Nunavuts have a heel.

Not planning or packing for the next trip yet. I had an Assateague trip in mind, hoping to be paddled into the bayside to watch an Antares rocket launch from Wallops Island, but the forecast is fugly – cold (27F-14F), windy (30 mph) and rainy/snowy. That sounds miserable; I think I’ll pass on the rocket launch and wait for better weather.

I have started map gazing and route planning for a long western trip in the spring. If that comes off as “planned” it would include a spell of birding and hiking in the Chiricahuas in SE Arizona, up to the top of Lake Powell for a big-lake paddle and over to the Green for several weeks on a combined hiking and paddling permit, taking as long as permit-possible to float between Crystal Geyser and Spanish Bottom.

The map gazing part includes looking at the route out and back for stuff along the way. The Washita National Wildlife Refuge in western Oklahoma looks like an interesting stop/layover, as does the White Sands Nat’l Monument in New Mexico

http://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm

There is a lot of cool stuff out west I’ve never seen, and a lot that I have and would like to see once again. Meanwhile I’ll be keeping an eye on the wind, weather and tidal forecasts for an Assateague window of opportunity.
 
No new gear yet...but I did start a new build, a J Winters Kite, maybe it will be ready for the spring Forum meet up.
Trips? A loop trip on the Cedar and Hudson rivers and other ADK paddling, maybe revisit some old favorite spots.
Oh, and I will take My Darling Bride to the Essex Chain Lakes, she'll like it there.
 
The first trip of the year will be our annual Spring Break trip to GA & SC. The initial part of the trip is canoe camping in the Okefenokee NWR and then we head up to the Charleston area for a couple days of sea kayaking. The details aren't set yet but that's the usual experience; although we do paddle different areas within those two locations. After that it's back to the Adirondacks for a couple of weeks in late May/early June to teach a class. Once the school work is over my wife and I hope to get out somewhere in the Adirondacks just for ourselves. Right now I'm leaning towards leaving from Little Tupper Lake and heading out via Lake Lila so if anyone has any suggestions they'd be willing to share regarding that route, I'm all ears.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...Be well.

snapper
 
Ice out. Northern Highlands American Legion State Forest. Could be any lake, but probably Fishtrap lake and Nixon Creek
 
A week on the Willamette River in western Oregon.

I rarely buy any new equipment.
 
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I think Yellowcanoe has the right idea- Florida. I think spending some time on the beach, dreaming about canoeing and maybe not shaving is what I'd do. For summer though, I hope to go to Quetico and Temagami on two separate trips. I'd like to get a lighter tent and lighter more compact sleeping pad - I've got to cut down on weight, my own and my gear for future portages.
 
I think Yellowcanoe has the right idea- Florida. I think spending some time on the beach, dreaming about canoeing and maybe not shaving is what I'd do. For summer though, I hope to go to Quetico and Temagami on two separate trips. I'd like to get a lighter tent and lighter more compact sleeping pad - I've got to cut down on weight, my own and my gear for future portages.

I can show you a neat sleeping pad on my next cooking gear expedition... :) :) Also have maps of both areas if you need them for planning.
 
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