8 days 8 guys 1 van 6 states 13 rivers.
Our trip to the Northeast began in Asheville on the night of Woody Callaway’s birthday party. We showed up at the party, after spending the afternoon getting the van ready to max it out with kayakers, originally set on taking the trip to Minnesota to kayak the North Shore of Lake Superior. The plan to meet John Grace and a few others in Minnesota changed drastically after a few discouraging phone calls and some extensive water level research and the group decided to re-route the trip to an area with more water. We left Asheville at 2:30 am and drove all night to kayak the Lower Meadow and Upper Blackwater in West Virginia on our way north to the New England area.
Day 1. Lower Meadow and Upper Blackwater-West Virginia
Day 2. Raymondskill Creek and Shohola Falls – Pennsylvania
Day 3. Dunbar Brook Massachusettes and the West Fork of The Deerfield river in Vermont.
Warm weather in the first days of the trip brought the rivers up all across the area. The West Branch of the Deerfield was a great choice on the peak day running at a stout 10 feet! Tunnel Vision pictured below was one of the sickest rapids of the trip.
Day 4. Big Branch and Easy Street Slides in Vermont.
This years snow pack in the New England states is the best it has been in ten years.
The first 4 days of the trip we kayaked in 4 different states on 8 different rivers and did two different runs each day, each run had optimal to high water levels.
Maine especially had plenty of snow on the ground.
Our massive posse’, aka. the Ocho, arrived in the great state of Maine on thursday afternoon and drove to one of the more classic park and hucks the state has to offer, Smalls Falls. 6 drops all 10-20 feet and a nice trail to walk back up and do again.
At this point in the trip we were stationed in Maine, we had done some good kayaking and group morale was high so we decided we were ready to take on a mission. The mission we decided on was one of Maine’s more remote classics, Nesodnehunk creek. A few miles of hiking up the creek from its confluence with the West Branch of the Penobscot on a snow covered trail…Id like to take a moment here to send a quick thanks to the guys at NRS for the provided DRY suit, my feet were much happier than those without this luxery. 500 feet up and 3 miles later, we arrived at the start of the goods, the first rapid named Little Niagra looked big and good to go, as did the next big rapid Big Niagra-slightly bigger-but all good.
The mission went smoother than anticipated , a nice water level, not too much snow on the trail, and decent run-out rapids in the remainder of the run. It was pretty cold at the put in and some of our ill-prepared members, aka. those without pogies, were ready to get off as soon as we got on so we didnt really get to embrace the run as we would have liked to and instead raced down the river to get to the van and into dry clothes.
Day 6: East Branch of the Piscataquis ME
Day 7: Moxie Stream ME
Day 8: Upper Pemigewasset NH
The last day of our trip we left Maine the night before and lucked out with a really nice place to stay right near the Upper Pemi in New Hampshire at our friend Sparks’ house, special thanks to Sparks for the hospitality! Also with the warming weather, the upper pemi got up to a nice level.
Photo credit: Jay Moffatt and Joe Barkley
Check back for more updates in the weeks to come as Dave Fusilli and my brother Graham and I travel out to Colorado to compete in races and rodeos in the month of June.
Also,
Check out the next Lunch Video Magazine for a possible Northeast section with a bunch of footage from our trip. www.lvmvideo.com