Let's Talk About the Trip

Where to start, where to start. Oh, I know... how about I start at the beginning. For those of you who don't remember, my friends and I have been doing these trips for a long time... fourteen or fifteen years straight... long enough that even we aren't sure exactly how long it's been. We've run over a dozen different rivers in three different states, spent thousands of dollars on food, gear, gas and beer, and have loved (almost) every minute of it.

There were initially four of us, then it grew to six or seven, then back down to four, and during the last couple of years, only three of us still make the trip.

This year we kind of returned to our roots. We stayed closer to home, ran a true self-contained canoe trip that lasted several days, and left a lot of our frivolous gear at home (no pop-up trailer, no Coleman stove, and no automatic drip coffee pot).

We waited until the last minute to choose our river, partially because many rivers ran high until just a couple of weeks before the trip. Our decision to hang close to home also limited some of our options, because we've already done most of the rivers in our immediate vicinity. In the end, we chose our river based on its location, how accessible the river was, and how much work would be required on the trip (how much paddling, portaging, and so forth). Our choice ended up bringing us some unexpected surprises, which I'll talk about over the next few posts. In the meantime, here's another shot of the river to tide you over.