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a canoein' khuk? Pt. II
- Thread starter Runs With Scissors
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2000
- Messages
- 3,002
Well...here's how it played out...In the interest of objectivity I'll drop my level of machismo and pride as much as I can stand to. 
Got up at 4 AM Saturday morning...sort of...I was already awake with a hellaciously nasty allergy attack. It had been raining all night, but neither of us even remotely thought of delaying our plans. My wife got her stuff together and dropped us off at 6AM. (She's a slow riser) It had ceased raining, and everything was drying up nicely. We were travelling so light we completely loaded the canoe at the truck and just carried it fully loaded with one hand down to the river.
At 6:30 I marked our waypoint on my GPS, said my goodbyes and we were on our way. Holy Crap was the river running high! 'bout the highest I can remember seeing it. we had a couple of near disasters learning to work together. I hadn't been in a canoe in about two years, and my buddy had never been on a river. There's a lesson here: I should have taken him out on a lake first, no matter what. I was bargaining for the old easy going amatuer friendly river I'd always known in the past so I could ease him into it...this was not to be. River was running fast, , twisty, windy, with lots of sweepers. I wouldn't be so dramatic as to call it "dangerous" but...it was definitely a good time to keep my head outta my a$$ and pay real close attention to the river.
We were on the river for about ten minutes when the skies darkened and rain started dumping on us...seems the wind picked up a bit too. We were so busy keeping the canoe upright and in the right direction, there was no way we could pull over and dig our raingear out of the bottom of our tightly secured well tied down packs (mark that as another mistake w/ the raingear) Also, the river was so high there was no place to pull over to, no sandbars, or easily accessible spots, the river was reaching all the way to the the top of dense brush all the way down.
So went the first part of our day. GPS said we were averaging about 5-7 MPH, which is pretty darn quick under the circumstances. We had found our rhythm about a half hour into things. I kinda pride myself on being able to work with most anybody, and my buddy was a damn strong paddler, with a reasonably intuitive feel for things and a "can do" attitude so the pucker factor went from high to medium pretty quickly. Right about at the halfway point we found a mud pit and pulled out for awhile. We both looked like drown rats, my buddy was shivering like a dog crappin' peach seeds, and I was far from comfortable. Thank God I had the common sense to pack a watchcap in my essentials bag. That thing saved the day for me. We wolfed down some food, I watched him stumble around, and then we went back to it.
Raingear was null and void since we were already soaked, a fire would have been a huge PITA to make, and I was saving my dry change of clothes for more dire circumstances.
Once we were back on the river, things calmed down a bit for us. it was right about this point though that the river straighened, widened, and slowed down. We quickly figured out that as long as we were paddling, and working our butts off we could stay only a little chilly. If we stopped for more than a minute we'd start shivering. It was about this point we both decided to hell with taking our soaked arses to a soaked camp, and huddling in a tent overnight, and we were gonna shoot straight through this sucker. So...that's what we did. the GPS was somewhat maddening. It would read like "8.7 miles left" we'd paddle our asses off for an hour and then it'd read "8.8 miles left" the river wound so much it took awhile to hit our waypoint.
The average canoe trip on this river is three days if you putter alot, two full days average, and sixteen to eighteen hours if you go like hell. We hit the landing in nine hours flat. We'd hauled a$$
So, all in all, the trip took a toll on us. But...I don't regret it a damn bit. I learned alot, and I'm a firm believer that doing ANYTHING is better than sitting around jawjackin' about it. It got our feet wet for the summer, some ideas for other trips, and we learned a little more about what to pack and what not to. Oh, and we saw alot of neat things.
countless birds and ducks
1 porcupine
4 beaver
7 moose (one a new born calf...incredibly cute!)
3.5 black bear. Saw a mama with cubs about a mile and a half from four of the moose, including the young calf. (Wonder what they were planning on for dinner?)
Thought I saw another blackie in the bushes once, but by then we were in pretty rough condition, and my buddy (who neglected to bring a hat??!!) had made it clear he was ready to get to the truck and turn on that heater. So, I just let it go. Friends are more important than dead animals anyways.
And one of the coolest things I saw...a burl tree...it was lying in the river had probably about an eight inch trunk that was FILLED with burls. coming out from it were about a dozen limbs that were filled with burls. All in all probably about fifty burls on this ONE TREE. I'm already pondering loading my canoe lightly next weekend and going back to get that sucker.
So, anyhoo...that was my trip...I suppose I kinda wussed out since we skipped the camp, but at least I did it in style, making the trip that fast in a canoe. Hell, I went out, had an experience, learned something new. that's not a bad thing. We didn't get mauled by a bear, or trampled by a moose, (although mama moose gave us one hell of an evil eye) we didn't go in the drink, and I can laugh about it now. never a bad thing....
I'll make the trip again late in the fall. River will be slower, rainy season will have passed, and blackie will be fatter, with a better coat, and less brush to hide in.
Got up at 4 AM Saturday morning...sort of...I was already awake with a hellaciously nasty allergy attack. It had been raining all night, but neither of us even remotely thought of delaying our plans. My wife got her stuff together and dropped us off at 6AM. (She's a slow riser) It had ceased raining, and everything was drying up nicely. We were travelling so light we completely loaded the canoe at the truck and just carried it fully loaded with one hand down to the river.
At 6:30 I marked our waypoint on my GPS, said my goodbyes and we were on our way. Holy Crap was the river running high! 'bout the highest I can remember seeing it. we had a couple of near disasters learning to work together. I hadn't been in a canoe in about two years, and my buddy had never been on a river. There's a lesson here: I should have taken him out on a lake first, no matter what. I was bargaining for the old easy going amatuer friendly river I'd always known in the past so I could ease him into it...this was not to be. River was running fast, , twisty, windy, with lots of sweepers. I wouldn't be so dramatic as to call it "dangerous" but...it was definitely a good time to keep my head outta my a$$ and pay real close attention to the river.
We were on the river for about ten minutes when the skies darkened and rain started dumping on us...seems the wind picked up a bit too. We were so busy keeping the canoe upright and in the right direction, there was no way we could pull over and dig our raingear out of the bottom of our tightly secured well tied down packs (mark that as another mistake w/ the raingear) Also, the river was so high there was no place to pull over to, no sandbars, or easily accessible spots, the river was reaching all the way to the the top of dense brush all the way down.
So went the first part of our day. GPS said we were averaging about 5-7 MPH, which is pretty darn quick under the circumstances. We had found our rhythm about a half hour into things. I kinda pride myself on being able to work with most anybody, and my buddy was a damn strong paddler, with a reasonably intuitive feel for things and a "can do" attitude so the pucker factor went from high to medium pretty quickly. Right about at the halfway point we found a mud pit and pulled out for awhile. We both looked like drown rats, my buddy was shivering like a dog crappin' peach seeds, and I was far from comfortable. Thank God I had the common sense to pack a watchcap in my essentials bag. That thing saved the day for me. We wolfed down some food, I watched him stumble around, and then we went back to it.
Raingear was null and void since we were already soaked, a fire would have been a huge PITA to make, and I was saving my dry change of clothes for more dire circumstances.
Once we were back on the river, things calmed down a bit for us. it was right about this point though that the river straighened, widened, and slowed down. We quickly figured out that as long as we were paddling, and working our butts off we could stay only a little chilly. If we stopped for more than a minute we'd start shivering. It was about this point we both decided to hell with taking our soaked arses to a soaked camp, and huddling in a tent overnight, and we were gonna shoot straight through this sucker. So...that's what we did. the GPS was somewhat maddening. It would read like "8.7 miles left" we'd paddle our asses off for an hour and then it'd read "8.8 miles left" the river wound so much it took awhile to hit our waypoint.
The average canoe trip on this river is three days if you putter alot, two full days average, and sixteen to eighteen hours if you go like hell. We hit the landing in nine hours flat. We'd hauled a$$
So, all in all, the trip took a toll on us. But...I don't regret it a damn bit. I learned alot, and I'm a firm believer that doing ANYTHING is better than sitting around jawjackin' about it. It got our feet wet for the summer, some ideas for other trips, and we learned a little more about what to pack and what not to. Oh, and we saw alot of neat things.
countless birds and ducks
1 porcupine
4 beaver
7 moose (one a new born calf...incredibly cute!)
3.5 black bear. Saw a mama with cubs about a mile and a half from four of the moose, including the young calf. (Wonder what they were planning on for dinner?)
Thought I saw another blackie in the bushes once, but by then we were in pretty rough condition, and my buddy (who neglected to bring a hat??!!) had made it clear he was ready to get to the truck and turn on that heater. So, I just let it go. Friends are more important than dead animals anyways.
And one of the coolest things I saw...a burl tree...it was lying in the river had probably about an eight inch trunk that was FILLED with burls. coming out from it were about a dozen limbs that were filled with burls. All in all probably about fifty burls on this ONE TREE. I'm already pondering loading my canoe lightly next weekend and going back to get that sucker.
So, anyhoo...that was my trip...I suppose I kinda wussed out since we skipped the camp, but at least I did it in style, making the trip that fast in a canoe.
Hell, I went out, had an experience, learned something new. that's not a bad thing. We didn't get mauled by a bear, or trampled by a moose, (although mama moose gave us one hell of an evil eye) we didn't go in the drink, and I can laugh about it now. never a bad thing....I'll make the trip again late in the fall. River will be slower, rainy season will have passed, and blackie will be fatter, with a better coat, and less brush to hide in.
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2000
- Messages
- 3,002
Thanks Kismet,
The change of clothes may have been in order, but I only had one change, and I was still pretty leery of hitting a sweeper.
I pretty much figured that violent shivering can be dealt with okay, If I had hit "mush mouth" stage I woulda been putting on every layer of clothing I had and crawling into a sleeping bag.
Of course that part of being made stupid is a serious factor...maybe it had already started....It's not a very far journey for my mind.....
I truly do appreciate the good words and the concern.
The change of clothes may have been in order, but I only had one change, and I was still pretty leery of hitting a sweeper.
I pretty much figured that violent shivering can be dealt with okay, If I had hit "mush mouth" stage I woulda been putting on every layer of clothing I had and crawling into a sleeping bag.
Of course that part of being made stupid is a serious factor...maybe it had already started....It's not a very far journey for my mind.....
I truly do appreciate the good words and the concern.