Probably not going to help.
That is the kind of thing I am trying to avoid. To much time to get the information I need just to find that the river is not suitable.
I thought some time might be saved by drawing information from the collective knowledge of many.
More debate.
Naturally David Collins has more experience than me. He’s 60 years old. Odds are no one on these forums can match his personal knowledge of canoeing or of rivers in the U.S. But maybe he missed a few rivers that I need to find out about.
The original post was not impatiently written, but direct. Saves time. Gives you the information you need to answer the question. If people concentrated on answering the questions instead of useless banter it would have saved me a lot of time.
No I didn’t throw out any accussations. I explained the possibility. There is a difference.
As for bringing David Collins into it, the point is that he knows the rivers here in the U.S. and other places and even he can’t know all of them. So neither could I, and neither could your arrorgant friend that made that particular post that I responded to. So what is he posting about? He accused himself of being incompetent in this area since he can’t have the knowledge that he is implying I should have.
And as for guides. One lied to me last month. I asked him the state of the Santa Fe. I already knew it had risen about 16 feet. He said it had only raised a few inches due to rain. And then I put the question to him directly, and he lied again. All I wanted to know was if it had dropped any and if he felt it was safe to take the guys out. So, I am sure there are good guides. But some of them aren’t good.
Nonetheless, I didn’t come here to debate. Nice that there were a few people on these forums who were considerate enough to answer the actual question. As for the rest of you, I’m not going to waste any more time debating with you. Probably some commercial interests going on in here anyway.
Horsetooth Reservoir
I have heard nothing but great things about it!
When I read your original post I…
decided to wait for a few replies to see if you are real.
I now believe that your are real and you are doing something similar to what one on my sons did until he couldn’t take the state bureaucracy any more and then quit.
He used to lead groups of “last chance” bad asses on wilderness canoe trips.
This was a program where judges gave the guilty older teens and twenty year olders the choice of going in jail or going on a wilderness outing and learning some team work and how to get along with others.
I am completely in agreement with you that they don’t need any of the safety BS or instructions they everyone on these forums are always espousing.
They learn it by doing, and making mistakes and are much better off for it in the end.
Enough of my soap box.
A few places come to mind.
- The Edistoe river in SC Carolina (possibly camp at state parks and sand bars along the way)
- the Lumber river in NC and SC (good sand bar camping along the way, but watch out for private property).
- the New River in NC and Va. (state park camping along the way)
- the Suawannee River, starting in Fargo Georgia
5 And lastly the Everglades National Park in Florida. (not a river though) - Portions of the wilderness water way.
You need to get camping permits and they usually limit the amount of people per camp sites, but I’ll bet if they knew your situation they would bend their rules a bit.
Good luck
cnheers,
JackL
Can’t be around people?
My god, if you have to shelter these guys from any of OUR “bad” personal contact, how the hell are they going to function in our society anyway. You present yourself as a over protective mother. They have served thier time, so they have paid thier debt to society in my eyes, however, if they are so shellshocked by thier freedom, they are doomed to return to prison anyway. After all, they are the anoes who commited a crime, it wasn’t “us” that spooked them and made them do it. Heaven forbid they hear a curse word slip past ones lips, or see a female in a swimsuit, that may make them commit a violent crime! I really question your ability and credentials to handle a group like this anyway.
Just my 2 cents, as it seems you have come across with an attitude to the very people you have asked for help from. Oh, i forgot, WE DON’T UNDERSTAND! And no, these fellow paddlers DON’T have a private agenda to get you to hire them as your guide, for I seriously dought any of them would accept the responsibility of your group or yourself.
Firekayaker
Completely out of the box suggestion
Pyramid Lake Nevada http://www.nevadaweb.com/cnt/r-t/pyramid/main.html
No it is not a river, but it is isolated and mostly fisherman during the day. Need tribal permission to camp and some areas, notably The Pinnacles are off limits to non tribal members. About a 19 mile long lake but about 45 miles of shoreline. Drawbacks ( for what you want to avoid) close to Reno, development is encroaching rapidly, near the Black Rock Desert so you want to avoid going there during Burning Man and unpredictable weather, winds can whip that water into a frenzy in a matter of minutes
Check This Link: "Places to Paddle"
There is a link on this board to “places to paddle” with trip reports from all over the country.
http://www.paddling.net/places/
The whole “canoe and kayak” part of this board long since became an elaborate cover for people to express opinions on things they don’t know shit about.
I’m just trying
to figure out how/why my posts were deleted.Left to go mt. biking; came back 6 missing posts in various areas, including mine. I hate this site, unfortunately there’s some good people with good info. on it. Wish I could travel 1600 miles on taxpayers wallets to go paddle.
The secret to that
Join the Navy and paddle the world.
CPOTD
Crazy post of the day.
There is no such place
I’ve been to many of the “wilderness” canoe areas in the United States–the Everglades, Boundary Waters, Isle Royale, the Buffalo, the Current, the Green, the San Juan, etc. and I have friends who’ve probably been to almost every place imaginable. There is no place where you won’t see people in the United States in decent weather.
If you really want to avoid all people, you either have to go to Canada (if entry is allowed for members of your group) or go very much off season–which would be unreasonably dangerous with a inexperienced group of paddlers.
I also work in an inner city ministry with homeless people and people re-entering from prison, so I know the needs of such a group.
If you have sufficient resources, then I would paddle the Green River in Utah in April from Green River to Spanish Bottom. But you will see some people. Not many, but some. If it were me, I would reduce the size of the group so that it could be closely supervised by the number of group leaders available. I don’t see what else is possible.
But you have such an attitude, that I worry about your supervision. We don’t allow that in our ministry.
But it’s your group and your life, so no doubt you will do what you want.
thanks Chuck, I tried
actually Coast Guard. Blood pressure too high. The Marines loved that.
North Alabama
Maybe the Sipsey river from the picnic area down to Smith Lake. The Sipsey Wilderness is a pretty remote part of Bankhead National Forest.
Elk River is also possible and there is an outfitter somewhere on it (outfitter may be in TN).
Maybe the Coosa river from GA to AL.
There are also sections of the TN River that are relatively unpopulated.
jim
it’s the media
that influences in a negative way that gets me every time
Input appreciated.
I appreciate it and will check it out with the others.
Ok
You can’t isolate yourself completely but you can find isolated places to camp.
As for attitude. Have you read this thread? I asked one question. And got answers that had nothing to do with the question. But fortunately some people did give some good input. And even better a couple of guys who are very helpful sent me private emails.
The rest of the people instead of trying to answer the question want to start a debate. That’s a good way to get nothing done.
I already looked at that.
But I would have to check a lot of rivers to find the right ones. There just isn’t enough information about the rivers to make decisions. As I said earlier, I thought information might be quickly gathered by asking people on this site. Who would have thought that would have caused a debate to erupt.
Definitely sounds interesting.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
I appreciate it Jack.
I really do. I’ll check it out.
I appreciate it.
And I will check it out. Thanks for the input.