This might be a strange questions. But lets say you are going to take a trip down a river. Could be a day trip, might be several days. How do you arrange transportation to and from the river. Do you have someone drop you off, then pick you up down stream? Do you travel one way, then fight the current back to the starting point? Do you drop off one vehicle at your take out, then drive to the put in and leave a vehicle there until later?
Shuttle in 5!
Doing down river runs typicaly we leave cars at either end.
Sometimes we will use a bicycle or walk back.
The beauty of poling is that you can push hard upstream until you are pooped then float back. No shuttle required.
Two ways…
If it local…I let my wife drop me off and I’ll be about. When I’m done, I’ll call her up. Or call one of my friends for a ride.
Anywhere else…I try to travel in groups. So we usually use two cars. One we leave it in the drop off point and we head to the start area.
Solo trip…I use the calm waters. I’ll go upstream first then turn around and ride it.
some paddle shops
offer a shuttle service. One that I use often has a great (sunday breakfast buffet) restaurant 1/4 mile away. After breakfast my son and I catch a ride 12 miles upriver(farmington river), trip ends right back at the canoe shop so no shuttle back needed. “Main stream outfitters” New hartford Ct. Another, “Clarke outdoors”, offers the same on the Housatonic river,although they give a shuttle back to their shop.
Interesting
I did not know that some places offer a shuttle service. I will have to remember to look into that for some of my bigger trips.
The webb brothers and locals
used to be eager to give rides aroing the hiwassee. We always had fine reefreshments to share ;-)… Long ago.
My buddies…
…and I did a 5-day paddle last September. We had two cars, each car-topping a canoe. We dropped the canoes and all gear off at the put-in. Than two of us drove both cars to the take-out (only about 35 mins. each way by car) and left one of the cars there. Then headed back in one car back to the put-in where we left that car. Once you finish your trek, hop in the car and go fetch the other car, then put it all back together again.
For a day or so trip I paddle up stream
till I satisfied, pooped, or out of “freskas”, then its an easy float back to the truck ( of course I alwasy have a designated driver…just in case…
scooter
I have a scooter I put in the back of my truck so only one vehicle is needed.