Invasive species permit…there’s always something.
invasive species permits with inspections are required idaho and wyoming, some states only make you register kayaks if they are over 10’ in length like Iowa. I’ve purposefully taken short boats to get around that requirement Other states require they be registered only if they are motorized and some states not at all, or at least not for nonresidents. A few states require that you produce registration from your home state or register in their state.
Often addition user/launch fees are incurred at specific locations- think army corps, local dept. natural resources, state parks, some national parks, and even some national forests have launch or parking fees. So often I pick locations to boat that don’t have much active management. Most of wv, where I live, is pretty laid back (no fees, or registration, invasive species permits) and for that I am thankful.
I’ve boated in over 30 states so far. Much of that out of an rv or camper van . I’ve done the canoe or kayak rental thing sometimes because it is just more convenient, especially if shuttles are involved. States where the regs are pretty simple include Wv, Ny (adirondacks), Tn, Ky. Places where it is more complicated include Me (Allagash, Baxter, North Maine Woods), Id, and Pa.
Without a good rack on a rv I would suggest renting. Often the outfitter can provide you with good local beta as well.
We are drifting off track. In Maine you do not have to register paddlecraft. Pure and simple. Please do not muddle. Looking at the AWA website only six states require paddlecraft registration.
If you want to paddle the Allagash or the Penobscot River Corridor those sites are in the NMW ( though there is a separate account for them) and you are paying a user fee. Not at all paddling related. If you are camping on sites there on a snowmobile or snowshoe in our car camp at accessible sites you have to pay a NMW fee. Part is for day use to maintain the roads ( they are not State funded) and part for the campsite maintenance which is darn good.
Its hardly complicated You pull over at the gate or iron ranger and pay the fee. Its nice to get an ice cream or soda there too at a reasonable price.
However we are off the OP’s course.
RV Firewood…since you are going sooner or later this comes up…most parks with a naturalists forbid you from bringing firewood to the park from a long distance…some places 50 miles. The effort is to prevent tree
Destroying insects from traveling to distant forests . Many places sell kiln dried firewood at he gate. Others don’t. Often, esp in country areas, there will be some piles, rack or other device near the park. Usually such places are “honor” system. Usually there is a $10 +/- charge for one unit , pile stack, etc. Put the money in a box take the wood.
I’ve really enjoyed paddling in Me but it can get complicated. You left out fire permits, unmarked and changing shuttle roads (you can’t get there from here, active logging operations), reservations for Baxter and the Allagash and the separate fee structure for the Katahdin Iron Works Road and the newly formed park along the East Branch (which I believe is still free and relatively permit free). If you are there as a casual visitor the fishing regs can make for some interesting reading as well. There is a reason for the popularity of registered Maine Guides.
O for petes sake No reservations required for the Allagash nor the Penobscot nor the Moose. No canoe trip in Maine requires a reservation! Baxter doesn’t either! Where did you get that info?
The newly formed park is a National Monument called Katahdin Woods and Waters. Access is free. Never required a permit nor will it ever in the foreseeable future.
Of course there are active logging operations and roads change…they are private but the big roads do not change.
Baxter is a State Park. Yes reservations are advisable but its not a canoe trip. You can run the E Branch or the Sebeois through KWW no fee no reservations. That is on the east border of Baxter.
We like our unmarked roads. Keeps the casual visitor thinking. But look close…some are marked and it is a given you carry a De Lorme.
I have enjoyed every one of my 35 years canoeing as a visitor and the last 21 as a Maine resident. It is so easy that I can see it is a nice day, pack and go and be to Chamberlain in three hours and on a trip on the Allagash.I mail a spare set of keys to Norm at Pelletiers enroute with the location of the left behind car and the plate number. He has a week to move it.
As one who used to frequently travel through the US in rented motorhomes, I would say that you will be unlikely to find transporting kayaks an easy thing with one, particularly if you are obliged to keep it in good condition for delivery. First off, most Class B and Class C motorhomes do not have a way to slide long items like hardshell boats inside the main interior. Even the few that do would mean you had them blocking the areas in which you hoped to sleep, eat and use the unit for living during overnight stops.
I have solved this myself on trips either by renting boats or by taking along my folding kayaks that collapse into a duffel bag and can fit in any cupboard or corner of a vehicle. Other people use inflatable boats for the same reason. Some versions that would make this feasible for you would be Orukayak or Pakboat Puffin folding kayaks or many of the various models of inflatables by Advanced Elements, Aquaglide and Innova, among others. Airkayaks is one source of the latter category if you want to browse those options:
https://www.airkayaks.com/categories/Kayaks{47}Canoes/For-1-Paddler/
It is hard to predict at this point, how accessible camping will be along your route by Summer. Currently things are in relative chaos in the US in the wake of the late response of the Federal government to the spread of the coronavirus. Schools and businesses are rapidly shutting down and with many public facilities closing down, options are anyone’s guess. Even if they get things under relative control here, there is likely to be far less overseas travel and even domestic airline travel by Americans as vacation choice for the remainder of the year. This is probably going to mean a greater shift to domestic vacations, particularly road trips. America’s National Parks, National Forests, Monuments and State Parks tend to be overwhelmed in the Summer anyway, and since the most recent Federal administration has drastically cut the budgets for recreational programs and the Parks Service since 2016 those facilities are stretched very thin and have fewer personnel and services.
Don’t count on being able to readily find parks to stay at en route and don’t even bother attempting to enter the most popular National Parks, like Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mammoth Cave, etc. In fact you may not even be able to drive into some of them just for a day visit due to the traffic jams that are present even in normal years. Yellowstone is a jammed parking lot from June to August, and this is true for many other well known sites. Many have all camp and RV sites reserved months in advance.
I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but this is going to be reality. As others have mentioned, we do have private companies like Walmart that allow overnight parking in their retail store lots by motorhomes. But they don’t have electrical or waste hookups so you will have to rely on the onboard generator and reserve tanks. And, needless to say, these are not scenic locations. Don’t expect to be able to use the microwave in your unit without a hookup. If you are not familiar with motorhomes, you do need to be aware that it costs from $30 to over $60 per night in high season to get a space for a motor home in a camp ground. And most states, other than those in the more remote areas of western states, prohibit “boon-docking” (camping by the side of the road or in undeveloped areas.) You will definitely want to buy a campground guidebook that lists all the public and private options in every state. I have been on trips where we had to drive for hours late into the night and to call dozens of campgrounds to find any kind of open space to park during a Summer trip.
Don’t know what your planned itinerary is, but places like Death Valley and the Mojave Desert and even the Grand Canyon, can be deadly hot during the summer months, another thing to consider in mapping your route. Las Vegas is not a place I would care to be in July or August. Temperatures can soar to well over 100 degrees F (40 C).
Perhaps you are already aware of much of this but you mention you are from Europe. I know from meeting travelers around the US for over 50 years that some Europeans are completely unprepared for the vast distances and climate extremes encountered in travel here.
1 Like
The comment about not needing to register paddlecraft in Maine is interesting, although getting into details about paddling the Allagash or Penobscot Corridor could certainly be considered an off-track muddle since those are nowhere near the op’s route.
I own houses in Maine and Ohio. Ohio does require paddlecraft registration but allows visiting vessels to be used (I think for 60 days max) if they “meet the registration requirements of another state”. I sometimes haul a Maine-based kayak back to Ohio, use it there for a month or so and then haul it back to Maine.
I’ve been stopped twice in my unregistered Maine kayak by Ohio rangers on state owned lakes, asking to see my registration. When told that the kayak “meets the registration requirements” of Maine, one of the two rangers actually asked for some proof that the kayak really is based in Maine. I like to be prepared so I had a copy of my Maine tax bill along with the Ohio rules and regulations booklet with me. The ranger was fully satisfied. So if the OP will be passing through any states that do require kayaks to be registered, he could encounter a similar situation. Having some documentation along could be useful.
My advice for the OP is simple. As a new paddler with limited use of an rv you may want to rent rather than haul kayaks, The local beta the outfitter could provide will also be benefical. Different states and their entities have different rules, fee structures, and access/shuttle challenges. The rental strategy can be an effective way to paddle in different parts of the country. You may want to invest in your own pfds and paddles to be more efficient and comfortable.
Now kayamedic, thank goodness! They’ve moved Webster Lake and Webster Brook out of Baxter! That’s welcome news. One of my favorite runs, done it 7 or 8 times just got a lot easier. I know my piddley 3,000 miles of Maine paddlin’ ain’t nothin’ compared to real resident but hey I still got an opinion . If we just get Baxter to give back or possibly relocate Katahdin Lake., I definately want to keep the views of the mountain so we would have to get them to move it as well.
It is also good to know that it was just my imagination and that on multiple occasions I hallucinated being told “the park (Baxter) is full” which meant day use only while seeng firsthand that there were scads of empty campsites and that there were whole camping areas vacant. I once showed up at the south gate five minutes after the official closing time. They were kind and let me drive my father to Kathadin stream campground so he could begin his AT hike the next morning (we had reservations)…only that didn’t happen…so we just went outside the park boundary and camped at one of the gravel pits/eskers . Welcome to Maine Dad!.. and the start of your AT adventure, I’m sorry your plane was 1/2 hour late getting to the Bangor airport! The gravel pit it is! Now I think the state of Maine has put up no camping sign at the gravel pit. You can blame/congratulate me for that, I started that trend 30 years ago. I actually had a pretty good chuckle with Tommy Chase (retired Baxter Ranger, Maine Guide) about all the times he used to give me the “once overs” at Matagamon. He was always checkin’ up on the boyscouts and admitted (30 years later) we were pretty good about lifejackets and such. I also never did the mad dash in the Allagash to beat others to a campsite,or have the rangers point me in other directions because of crowds, again I’m remembering it all wrong. Perhaps those problems have gone away in the last several decades with lower usage. You are right, you paid for camping, but you weren’t given the benefit of an actual reservation, it was just strongly suggested where to go and when. Once on the water you raced to get there before others but the sites were/and I assume still are very plush if they are unocuppied. If you are on the lakes you want to get up early anway to beat the wind. Be careful though, it is against allagash regs to hoist a sail and what’s the minimum boat length- also more hallucinations,
Why do you use Norm to shuttle? Remember, Maine is easy. Just do it yourself. No help needed. He does it for free right? Just kiddin’, my whole point is that in a state like Maine some help is nice. Lets get real though, you also have to expect to pay to play. Pay for road usage (you’re not alone my wv turnpike will gouge you as well), pay for campsites, pay day use fees, and yes logistically it makes sense to pay shuttle fees. Both NMW and Baxter have duel fee rates(resident versus nonresident).I enjoyed Baxter and the North Maine Woods on my last trip but I didn’t stay there.
I think I’m up to 33 states I’ve paddled in. I’ve really, really enjoy Maine but even with some knowledge gained from previous trips and having spent 7 summers paddling there, I still find it one of the more challenging places to plan for. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing I just find it a bit more difficult than most.
My last trip was 2018 when I camped out of my camper van and paddled The East Branch from Matagamon down to Bowlin Camps- figuring out that shuttle took some doing, Then I drove through “the park” which is always very slow but scenic,but i planned an entire day and my camper van was legit, I measured it. Then I paddled on the westbranch below the crib. The massive potholes on the golden road were a surprise. I guess since the mill closed down they don’t keep the road up like they used to (perhaps the user fees need to be upped) then I went over to Pittston Farm (once Great Northern now private) for a Southbranch run, Northbranch and a Seboomook Ledges run ,and then a Moose run below the Demo Bridge (another tricky shuttle and finding the takeout on the NFCT portage trail was not easy) then onto the Kennebec. I did the run below carry brook (I’m a real wimp with fake hips now) but the steps are really nice and a great improvement, Then a visit with relatives in Portland and a ride on the mail ferry, then back up to Webbs for a Dead Run (that shuttle is way better now than in the 80s) and then over to Cobbscook bay for some pond, Denny River and Bay paddling. The economy of Lubec and Eastport reminded me a lot of WV. We have a number of small towns with seasonal struggling tourist economies- Richwood, Webster Springs, Parsons. Great places that I root for. Somewhere amongst all that Maine driving was a trip to Jackman for groceries, and Greenville for a laundromat. I drove more in Maine than I did all the way up and back from WV. Fortunately, I understood the distances between the rivers, and the slow driving speeds on dusty rough gravel roads for shuttles and the like . I even got a surprise at whetstone falls. I figured I’d camp there (I used to 30 years ago ) but now it’s posted “no camping” So even your no hassle Katahdin Monument had a surprise for me. The Seboise campsite was gone, Nature Conservancy has that now so I camped in the pole barn lot near Matagamon Dam and checked into the Matagamon Wilderness Campground the next morning. No, nothing about Maine was easy for me.
Even the freebie Moose Circuit, Aroostook, can leave a little aftertaste- a bit of moxie with a hint of deet. Perhaps it’s the portage over/along the rr tracks, or watching someone lose a Nikon camera at the devil’s elbow, that makes even those trips memorable…oops I meant easy.
Another option for boats to accompany travel is packrafts. Here is an example of a new model. There is even a US based company that sells kits to make your own: diypackrafts.com