[Paddlewise] Canoe Trip Report

Richardson Lakes, ME or Rain, rain, go away

I was up on Lake Champlain on the Quebec border last week (I wrote a trip
report but it turned out to be more about lake monsters, Canadian Ballast
Rocks (TM), etc than paddling so I didn't post it).  Except for high winds,
the weather was pretty good then, as was the following week and (I think)
the preceding week.  So, the law of averages indicated that I'd probably
have less than perfect weather for a canoe trip in western Maine.

Sure enough, I left work at noon on Thursday in a downpour as I head north
up route 93 through the middle of New Hampshire.  When I got to the White
Mountains the rain changed to a heavy mist and the fall foliage became
brighter as I neared Franconia Notch, home of the Old Man of the Mountain.
The Old Man is a rock formation on top of a mountain overlooking a valley
that looks exactly like the head of a man.  Old age has caught up with the
Old Man and volunteers have been giving him a facelift over the past 20-30
years.  I think they've worked on his nose and forehead to keep them from
falling off.  He's one of New Hampshire's big tourist attractions.

I headed east on route 26 through Dixville Notch whose residents are the
first in the nation to vote in national elections.  Like Franconia, the road
in Dixville Notch passes through sheer granite cliffs, which are fairly
impressive, at least to us eastern (US) folks.  The surrounding mountains
were pretty much clouded in fog but you could still get a sense of the
remarkable foliage.  I spent a sunny day climbing all over these cliffs one
October a couple of years ago and got some great pictures.

After a 5 1/2 hour drive (and a couple of short cuts that actually worked) I
arrived at Lower Richardson Lake in Western Maine, 20 miles or so from the
New Hampshire border.  The Richardson Lakes (upper and lower) together form
about 18 miles, from one end to another, of wilderness paddling.  There is
very little development, campsites are scattered along the way and mountain
ranges surround the lake in all directions.

I only had an hour or so of daylight left when I got there so I just threw
my stuff in the canoe and paddled off into the unknown, trying to get a
sense of direction and find a campsite while I could still see.  There was
no wind but there was a fairly heavy mist and the lake was smooth as glass
with the shoreline reflected in the water.

I found a site on the other side of the lake and had the tent up before
dark.  By the time I had unloaded the rest of the stuff and had a sandwich,
it was totally dark. I read in the tent for a couple of hours and when I
turned the lantern off, it was absolutely, pitch black.  I could see nothing
at all.  There was a brook babbling (incoherently?) right next to the tent
and that's the sound I finally drifted off to sleep with.

I awoke at dawn on Friday morning to the sound of rain beating on the tent
and had the luxury of rolling over and dozing off again.  By the time I
really, really had to pee and I had to get up, the rain had stopped but the
whole sky was still a mass of black clouds.  I made a cup of tea and a bowl
of oatmeal and wandered along the sandy beach while I ate and saw some
fairly fresh moose tracks.  When I got back to camp, a couple of red
squirrels were checking out my gear and took off when they saw me.  I got
scolded pretty good from both of them once they were safely in the trees.

I broke camp and loaded up the canoe a little more carefully than the night
before.  This is a canoe designed for lakes rather than rivers.  It's 14
feet long and over 30 inches wide.  Because sitting in the stern presents a
lot of bow to the wind, I usually paddle in the canoe backwards (not me, the
canoe) when I'm by myself.  Sitting on the bow (now the stern) seat moves me
forward in the canoe and gives the wind less bow (stern) to push around.

I wasn't comfortable where I had left the truck so I paddled back to the
putin and moved the truck  about half a mile away and then started paddling
north.  There were mountains at either end of the lake and tall hills (or
short mountains, depending on your point of view) along the lake sides with
taller mountain ranges behind them.  All of them were in their full fall
colors.  The hills were covered with different shades of yellow, green and
red all mingled together with big patches of one color or another scattered
around.  Fog was swirling and drifting around the mountain tops and was
really interesting to watch.  Good thing there wasn't anyone else on the
lake because I was watching the mountains and not paying any attention to
where I was going and found myself first on one side of the mile wide lake,
then on the other.  There was a 5-10 knot following wind from the south and
for the first mile or so there were a few scattered summer cabins, and then
nothing to remind you of civilization.

I'm paddling up the middle of the lake, looking around and enjoying myself.
Then it occurred to me what a sight I must be.  Here I am, I've got my
purple floppy hat on, red fleece shirt, blue fleece vest, green fleece
socks, ratty, faded jeans, sneakers that are so old and stink so bad they'd
make a dead moose fall in love, paddling my canoe up the lake backwards, the
canoe loaded above the gunwales with ropes and cords and strings and stuff
trailing over the side in the water, splashing away with my forward stroke,
clunking the paddle against the stern (bow) in some kind of pry stroke to
keep myself going straight and loving every minute of it.  The Paddlewise
paddling purists would surely freak out and ban me from the group forever if
they could see me now.  All I'd need to complete the picture would be a can
of beer in one hand, a cigar clamped in my teeth, a boom box blasting out
bluegrass, a big beer belly poking out from my undershirt showing off a
hairy navel, maybe a few flies buzzing around my head and a Confederate flag
dangling from the stern (bow).  Class my *ss.  There ain't no style nor
technique here.  This is the real me, in all my magnificence.  

The plan was to paddle up to a campsite around the 14 mile mark and camp
there for the next two nights.  I would use that as a base to explore the
last few miles of the Upper Richardson and maybe part of an adjoining lake
on Saturday and then paddle back to my original campsite on Sunday.  Yeah,
right!
   
While taking a break at 10am around the 7 mile mark, a 10-15 head wind
appeared to put a slight damper on the festivities.  I paddled against that
for an hour or so when the heavy mist turned into a moderately heavy rain.
Real men don't put their rain suits on unless it's really pouring so by
11:30 I was soaking wet and the winds were up to a steady 15-20 knots.  I
got to a rocky point on the Narrows, which divides the upper and lower
Richardson Lakes at 10 1/2 miles.  I was barely making any headway at all so
decided to stop for lunch and hopefully the winds would die down.

By the time I finished eating, the rain had stopped but now I had a pretty
good case of the shakes and the wind was as strong as ever.  I was about a 1
1/2 miles from the last campsite and about 1/2 mile across open water dead
into the wind to the next site.  I have a real (moderate) fear of pneumonia
and can't/don't push myself very far in that direction.  I felt I needed to
get myself to camp, into dry clothes and into the sleeping bag with the gas
lantern on for heat as quickly as possible.  I knew I could make it across
the remaining 1/2 mile of open water in 30 minutes or so if I had to but
didn't really feel up to it; so I turned around and let the wind push me
back to the previous site in about 20 minutes on 1 foot waves.

I got the tent set up, put water on for tea and was trying to figure out how
to set up a new L.L. Bean tarp I had just bought when a real heavy mist
started again.  I unloaded everything else from the canoe, including one of
those cheap blue tarps.  I decided it would be easier and faster to set it
up as a canopy so attached ropes to it and started hoisting it up nearby
trees.  The L.L. Bean tarp came with two large, heavy folding poles that
really came in handy.

I was using a tiny little knife I have on a key ring to cut new pieces of
cord.  I was rushing around, doing this and that, holding the knife in my
hand when I noticed there where no longer any keys attached to the other end
of the knife.  Oh sh*t!  Not the key ring trick again!  I'm over 9 miles
from the putin.  The putin is close to 15 miles up a back road that has no
houses or anything except summer cabins for the last 10 miles or so.  And it
ain't summer any more.  But hold on!  Being an experienced loser of keys, I
have a spare set in my wallet plus another set in a magnetic box under the
chassis, plus another set in the medical kit.

I got the tarp up, everything stored underneath it, made my tea, and found
the keys after 15 minutes of sifting through newly fallen leaves.  By that
time I was feeling a lot better but there wasn't much I could do.  It had
started raining again and the wind was blowing a steady 15 knots with
occasional gusts to 20 knots or more blowing the tarp all to hell. There was
no flashing lightning, no booming thunder, no glitz or glamour, just wind
and rain, plain old ordinary, boring, miserable, mind numbing rain, hour
after hour after hour.

I took a nap for an hour or so and then went up into the woods for a walk.
The trees were pretty close together and not much rain was getting through.
There was lots of new growth pine trees, etc. with lots of little tiny pine
cones the size of a man's thumbnail all over the trail.  After a little way,
I came across a pile of pine cones that were almost black, much darker than
the brown color of the others.  I picked one up to examine it and found it
to be very soft and it came apart when I squeezed it.  Since there were
moose tracks on the trail it didn't take too long for me to figure out I was
holding moose sh*t in my hand and not a black pine cone.  I put it back on
the pile and continued my walk.  No, I didn't smell it to confirm my
suspicions.

When I got back to camp I broke out my Thermarest chair and a book and spent
the rest of the afternoon reading and listening to the rain beat on the tarp
and watching it pound onto the lake. I had supper as it was getting dark,
went into the tent, read some more and listened to the rain pound on the
tent before turning in around 9pm.  Do you know how annoying rain can become
as it pounds on a tent or tarp, hour after hour?

Saturday was pretty much more of the same, lots of wind and lots of rain.  I
saw the wind had blown out a couple of the grommets on the tarp during the
night.  They were set in the heavy edge of the tarp which still held, but
the regular part of the tarp was stretched and ripping.  The rain let up for
a while around 10am but the wind was still blowing strongly from the north.
The part of the lake I was in is somewhat protected from the north wind
blowing down the Upper Richardson by a dogleg of which the Narrows are a
part.  Gawd only knows how much it was blowing up there.  My weather radio
disappeared somewhere between my Lake Champlain trip and this one and my
Walkman wasn't working so I had no idea what was going on with the weather.
For all I knew I was catching the tail end of a hurricane like I did a few
years ago not too far from here.

Anyway, being bored out of my mind, I decided to paddle a half mile,
straight across the lake and explore the shoreline over there.  The wind was
still blowing about 15 knots but there were only 1 foot waves on the lake.
I didn't want to try to go into the wind or down wind.  I figured if I just
ferry across the lake the lake I'd be ok.  This proved to be the case except
I was only able to paddle on one side which gets kinda tiring.  I found more
fresh moose tracks on the other side, walked around for an hour or so and
then started back.

There were a few loons scattered around on the lake and I thought "nobody
around but us loonies".  The wind had let up so I headed north and got about
half a mile before it started again.  Too bad the waves weren't any larger
so I'd have something to play in but no such luck.  So I went back to camp,
hung out under the tarp, read until dark, then read in the tent and then
went to sleep.  So much for Saturday.

The wind died out sometime in the night but the rain was still going strong
in the morning.  There was a lull in the rain around 7am so I tore the tent
down as quickly as I could, trying to keep it as dry as possible, not
knowing what the day might hold in store for me.  The rains started again
while I was having breakfast.  I didn't have much choice though.  I'd had
enough and was determined to leave, rain or no rain.  I bundled up but had
to shed some clothes because the temperatures was somewhere in the 50's.

I loaded the canoe and started off around 8am.  It sure would've been nice
if I had a little of that north wind to give me a little push now but it was
just me and my noisy strokes for propulsion.  The rain soon soaked through
my rain pants and jeans but my torso was dry except for my own sweat.  I
passed a flock of about 15 loons about halfway and got back to the putin
around 10:30.  That was about 3 knots and hour which ain't too bad for an
old geezer with a purple hat, paddling his canoe backwards with no style or
technique.

As I drove away onto dry roads, I could see the sun trying to peak out from
the black clouds......

  
    


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