Today was a 19.9 mile paddle on moving water. We were going downstream. Most of the trip was great. We put in at 10:00. We saw a very few other groups the first ten miles. I haven't done this stretch in a few years except about 1.5 years ago when it was in a HUGE flood and my buddy and I went on an adventure. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this.

This trip was more mellow and beautiful. My buddy just got a "new" boat; his first solo canoe. It's the yellow one. This was the trip he got it out for the first time other than a little time in a reservoir with the previous owner before he bought it.






By the time we got to the half-way point, we were behind the early morning crowd and just at the front of the afternoon crowd. In fast boats, we had come upon sight of another group, so we put on the juice and passed them to be back again in a quiet place. But at the half-way point, a group of folks in tubes and the like were just launching. We boogied on past them. With the upstream wind, we never saw them again.



The next couple hours was a tiny bit more crowded. Just a bit. We saw maybe three or four other small groups of paddlers. Then when we got to the last 1.5 miles or so, it got nuts. In fact, it was like dodging a moving parade of people in tubes towing coolers of liquid refreshments. Holy cats!



I was frankly surprised how few motorized boats we saw. It was a great day; I'd do it again.

The air has improved dramatically the past week. There's still some smoke/haze some days, but it's mostly not at ground level nor as thick. We can see the sun when the fog clears in the afternoon.

I got invited to join a group of paddlers yesterday. We had a nice day on the river. This is a small group of people who like to PADDLE not float. We covered 20 miles in just under four hours, and 48 minutes of that time was a lunch stop.

I got to try out a new paddle. It's very light - just 15 ounces. Unfortunately, it was about two inches too long. I'm going to get a shorter one, and the person who sold it to me will use it as a demo/instructor paddle for people who aren't as vertically challenged as I.

My boat is pretty fast, and some of this group is, well let's just say they are older than middle aged. I still struggled to keep up much of the time. I give myself slack, though. One boat was a tandem. Two engines! Another was a Clipper Sea-1. That's almost 18' long semi-decked canoe that the paddler had built specifically for him to run the Yukon race. He's entered nine times and finished six. Holy cats. The other fellow has been racing canoes for 50 years. So it's not like I am slow. Just ~relatively~ slow.

Nice day. I just wish the sun had come out sooner than 25 minutes after we got off the water. Oh well.

Wow look at those leaves! We're not going to get a lot of color here this year. Too hot dry all summer, and then the smoke.

I got back out on the river yesterday with that group of fast people. We paddled 15.5 miles from Pengra to Island Park. This section has braided channels and trees in the water to avoid. It also has some small rapids as well as some shoals that would really damage my boat. Fortunately I didn't touch a single rock.

I tried a paddle that was two inches shorter, and it's almost the right size. I think one inch shorter will be PERFECT. The group is already planning next week's trip, and when we do something down in the mid-valley (no rocks to worry about), one of the guys is going to bring a carbon Voyager for me to try. It's only six inches longer than my boat, but it's a few inches narrower. And carbon is even LIGHTER and stiffer.

My average moving speed was 6.4 mph, and it didn't even rain that much!

What a beautiful day for a day in the shell. Just gorgeous!

I skipped on the "fast canoe group" last weekend to go hunt mushrooms. I think they took this week off due to the beautiful but cold weather and low river levels. I hope they invite me back.

mtaratoot wrote: »

Lovely autumn colors!

Mother Nature is putting on an extra special show this autumn in New England.

The leafs seem extra colourful this year... Maybe Mother Nature trying to make up for the covid debacle...

Lovely, @Farback!

Wildflowers from today's walk.

Spring Beauty (Claytonia sp., probably virginica), Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum), Trillium (probably Trillium grandiflorum.

The only picture is in my mind. I didn't bring a camera. I was worried about swimming out of the boat.

I got a "new" whitewater canoe. It's over 20 years old, but new to me. Mad River Outrage. It's 12' long with lots of rocker. I tried to get in once, and it threw me in the water before I was even in the saddle. I've spent a lot more time in whitewater canoes since then, and I bought this one from a buddy. I think I'm going to like it.

I drove down to a river access on the downstream side of town where it's shallow and very little current. Near my house is an eddy, but past the eddy is strong current. Not a good place to swim. I got in the boat and paddled about a mile upstream. Slowly. It's so much different from my ultralight. Instead of sit and switch, it's one-side paddling with a correction at the end of EVERY stroke, or you'll spin in circles. The boat felt really solid. I am now looking forward to getting it on some whitewater.

Not scenic, but I think it's kind of funny. On the community trail, we have a fake stone wall. Its purpose seems to be to dissuade cars on the highway (just out of sight to the right past the wall) from driving over the embankment and squashing the walkers/bikers. To the left of the photo, on the side of the trail opposite the wall, is a pond, so all in all it would be a Bad Thing for the driver, too.

Well, I was just about to do some garden chores when a neighbor texted me and another neighbor if we wanted to do a little go-at-your-own-pace paddle trip from the next put-in upstream from our town down to the boat ramp about a half hour from our houses. So I put everything else aside and went paddling. Only about ten miles.

Yesterday was a canoe trip about ten miles from the next put-in upstream to the ramp right near my house. I took my ultralight and caught a few fish. I was tempted to take my "new" (1997 model) whitewater boat, but that would have been the wrong choice. The fast light boat was great.

No real rapids, but some shallow ledges, down logs, and a few other obstacles with unseasonably low water levels. I did surf two small waves. It's been so long I forgot.... sunscreen. Oops. Just the legs. I was covered everywhere else. I'm taking the day off Wednesday; I might try to get back out or else go dive.

Drove my Chevy to the levee . . . no, wait: Rode my bike to the adaptive boat launch. It's at something called Esker Landing. It looks like this:

UncleMac wrote: »

I've never seen an EZ Dock before. Neat idea, especially for someone learning the sport and uncomfortable launching & landing...

There's also that nice little "parking spot" bay to the upper left in the 2nd photo, which may be useful for people who have the mobility to step down into a boat, but benefit from getting in in a constrained space like that, rather than on the outer edge of a dock. It's not in my photos, but in the first photo, the walkway that enters the dock area from the left of the photo is the bottom chunk of a full wheelchair ramp, and the whole pathway from the parking lot is paved and of decent width for wheelchair access.

I've never seen someone launch there using the adaptive set-up, but have seen wheelchair users unloading in the parking lot, so I'm sure they do. The body of water is a long, narrow pond or lake, so one could get in a reasonably energetic paddle, though one would have to do circuits to get a bigger distance. On the map, looks like it might be about a mile long, but I can't see the whole length from the walk/bike paths.

I don't have a bike trailer for my canoes/kayak (not sure bike trailer's my jam anyway!), and if I were going to paddle one of those boats from cartop transport, I'd probably go to a bigger body of water locally . . . but I've thought about taking one of the boats over there someday just to explore the place.

MikePfirrman wrote: »

The wife and I took up golf recently. This one of the two courses we play for league play. We play a new course tomorrow that's gorgeous. Really tall pine trees, rare for Tucson.

The town I live in Texas has half a dozen golf courses... and I don't golf... Go figure. Maybe I should fix that?