What an incredible trip, great paddling, beautiful scenery and good company. We arrived at the south end of the lake last Wednesday. I was the first to arrive, driving 8 hours from NJ. Scottb and KayakKen arrived next, Riverstrider next and finally Dougd and Jvogt. We made plans to put in as early as we could Thursday morning for the 7 mile paddle to our campsite.
At this point, I’ll let Doug tell the rest of the story.
Gentlemen’s Trip 2016
http://scooter-bangortoportland.blogspot.com/
Whoa.
Hope Doug heals quickly.
Beautiful area.
Where’s Andy’s canoe?
So, let me see if I have this straight. Ken was in a canoe. All the canoeists were in kayaks. But Andy was same old? Didn’t he get the memo?
I’m mostly a kayaker these days. Local paddling features open water where wind and waves have their way with canoes. When the waves start rolling over the bow, the canoeist is thinking “this ain’t good.” The kayaker laughs, “it’s getting fun!” I love to canoe, but on big, open water, its reassuring to be skirted into a sea kayak.
Anyhow, another great write-up by Doug and sorry about that injury. Sounds like the trip was fun.
No casualties except the freaky back thing. Sounds like the group made a good decision to paddle through the conditions.
~~Chip
Sounds like a fun trip
Even with the kayaks and windy days. Thanks.
The boats
– Last Updated: Oct-04-16 8:17 PM EST –
Interesting mix!
Doug - 30 year old Lettman tandem soloized.
Scott - Mariner Express
John - CLC 17
Chuck - Phoenix Isere. Very old.
Ken - Wenonah Voyager
Me - Kajaksport Artisan Millennium
Ken was hoping for good conditions, he struggled on the paddle out.
A great experience!
I’ve never camped from a kayak before, but I seemed to take to it OK…it helped that my Isere has a ton of volume (and thus room for gear) with a shape that still allows efficient paddling.
It was a real relaxing trip, something I know many of us really needed. Other than a bit of rain Thursday night into Friday it was dry. But yeah…that wind…
I have paddled my canoe in windier conditions (Moosehead Lake going to Mount Kineo comes to mind, as well as the 30 mph wind with 3 foot waves having the tops blown off them on Chesuncook) and with bigger waves (Chesuncook, and on Lake Champlain), but never for such a sustained distance or length of time like on Sunday, and at times it got a bit unnerving. But other than a couple random “oh sh*t” moments when things got really cooking in a narrows, I had a fun time surfing the waves south to the take-out.
It was relieving to see the rest of the guys eventually paddle into the cove at the boat ramp…I know they likely had a tougher time of it than Andy and I did…except Scottb…I bet he was loving it!
Next on the agenda…Allegheny River next week! Back to a canoe, and back to my preferred water type.
-riverstrider
Sounds like my former Voyager
performed as designed. Good write up.
As I heard it
Ken didn’t have the Voyager trimmed properly. In that severe wind, the Voyager weather cocked. Ken felt safer paddling backwards. Scott told him to go and beach the boat so they could change the trim. Helped, but still a scary ride for him.
Thanks for the reports, guys.
Doug is a great storyteller. Andy takes great pics.
That wind and chop looked just serious enough for one to always want to make sure their bow and attention was on any/all incoming waves–Especially when attempting any crossing in a kayak fully laden with camping gear. (Even if a few of those are mainly piloted by “canoe” guys;-)
Give me a shout when next year rolls around.
The Voyager is a weathercocking
nightmare in anything but a direct bow or stern wind.
nice blog!
Robin’s egg blue kayaks always look great against a clear sky. Nice fog photos also.
Naa. She’s just…
…an uneven-legged barrel-racing pony, occasionally needin’ some additional spurring to those bulbous flanks when zephyrous routes find her stickin’ her sticky snoot to the breeze.
As Douglas alludes, that also involves deployin’ verbal sorties of that content and rigorous outburst which one might hear from Blackbeard’s bosun, whenst discoverin’ all five rum barrels in the hold are haulin’ only vapour.
Douglas, glad your trip went well for you and all comrades, for the most part. And, for the life of me, I’ve still not figured why you continue to follow in the bodily life maintenance program of Allardyce T. Meriweather. But then, I suppose every particle of be’n Scooter comes with its element of risk.
Thomas - Hopin’ to someday come weathercock’n and half-cocked carousin’ with you, and ScottB, and Chuck and Andy and so forth, again.
Like boy’s camp and girl’s camp
near each other it would be fun to have a gal group in the same area. Gals could do their own thing and guys their…
That way… no don’t think panty raids!
Of the 6 boats
4 of them I would consider suitable for the conditions. My Artisan behaved superbly with the load I was carrying, although I did founder a couple of times. I’ve paddled in conditions like this many times and give it little thought other than the sheer joy of surfing downwind. Scotts’ Mariner express also handles this stuff well and Scott is a strong and experienced paddler. Johns’ CLC17 should also handle these conditions fine, but John had no experience in winds like this. John likes rivers. Chuck’s Isere is an old school boat, and handled the winds fine. Dougs’ Lettman is a big wide tandem boat that he soloized. Waves lifted his rudder out of the water and the boat would spin. Kens’ Voyager was just not suitable, kudos to Ken for doing it.
Oh, and for the record…
the coffee grounds did NOT get thrown into the woods.
And NO ONE threw orange peels on the beach.
-rs
I threw my orange peels
In the fire.
Apeeling Grounds for Discourse
Toasty Temple skins,
mixing in the grounds,
now sophisticated moose,
in Bangor make the rounds,
Aziscohos as you can get,
to a Tampa coffee shop,
where I’ve blown bio degrading,
and composte this poem slop.