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Pastimes : Canoes, Hiking, the Great Outdoors -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AugustWest who wrote (210)	8/12/2001 8:49:58 AM
From: Crocodile	Respond to of 325

Well, no great loss by not keeping up here as there haven't been many coming by this thread in awhile. Sometimes I think that the reason that this thread never had much participation is because you can't watch the market from the seat of a canoe...or from out on a hiking trail down in some canyon. Actually, I suppose you could, but the more important question might be "Why WOULD you?" (o: That tripping down a creek in the raft actually sounds like some fun, although an encounter with a overhanging snag, or being left waaaay behind the raft might not be too good. We really enjoyed innertubing down a certain river in Nova Scotia when we were down there. There's a dude that rents the tubes and you go upriver to a hydro dam, and then drop into this river and go down to a town that is downriver and pull yourself out when you get to a place where a low wooden bridge crosses the river. The only real "obstacles" are these weird nets that are suspended across the river by cables that are used to catch a kind of little fish that comes upriver. You sometimes have to get ducked well down to slide under those. I love all that water stuff though... canoes, rafts, tubes. I grew up along a river, and my mom grew up on the St. Lawrence, which is kind of the Head Honcho of rivers...so she taught us all about being around rivers from when we were wee gaffers. In my family, we all learned to swim like otters when we were just 2 or 3 years old as my mom really believed in learning how to survive in the river from early on. I still find my life revolving around rivers even now... I spend a lot of time walking along them, or sitting by them, or paddling around in them. And the best times of my life have been while along rivers or at one of the oceans. Anyhow, yeah...white-water rafting. There are several companies that do that up the valley from us. But the trips are mostly half-day type of things, although there are some that are longer and a little wilder. We do still have some wild rivers up in this part of the country. It's kind of a funny coincidence that you mentioned the white water though... as I picked up a big batch of books at a bookstore clearance sale yesterday, and one of them was entitled, "Breaking into the Current: Boatwomen of the Grand Canyon". It's about the first dozen or so women who began working as oarsmen on the Grand Canyon river rafts and boats back between 1950-1970s. Last night, I sat out on my bed in the summer porch and read it for an hour or so, and now I'm all worked up about the idea of maybe rafting down through the Grand Canyon sometime. Says in this book that the oar-boats take about 2 weeks to make the whole trip, and the motor rafts take about 7-8 days (I would be more interested in the oar-powered trips). I love Arizona and am hoping to spend an increasing amount of time down there over the next while... and a trip down the Colorado River seems like something that would be...well...pretty damned amazing... Well, for today, I am looking for a suitable adventure. Had been thinking of going paddling somewhere, but it's looking kind of overcast. I'm thinking perhaps a hiking trip might be more suitable. We'll see. If it's something interesting, I'll be back here with a little trip report before long. take it easy! croc

To: AugustWest who wrote (210)	8/13/2001 11:20:44 AM
From: Crocodile	Respond to of 325

Bonnechere River Trip Report: Well, we did manage to get out paddling on the Bonnechere River yesterday. It's up the valley, north of our place. The river is probably about 75 miles long with its source within Algonquin Park. We wanted to explore the last section of it before it reaches the Ottawa River. We parked at a boat launch which the powerboat people use to access the Ottawa, and then paddled upstream on the Bonnechere. The Bonnechere runs through predominantly pine, cedar and spruce forests. There are occasional beaver lodges or food storage branch heaps along the riverbanks. The geology along the river is predominantly limestone. In fact, upriver, there are karst-type caves going into the riverbanks (the Bonnechere Caves). Yesterday, the most interesting encounter was with a pair of reasonably large pike that were sunning themselves in very shallow water among the Arrowhead plants. I think we took them by surprise as they made quite a splash as they scudded forward to get away from the canoe. We met them again on our way back downstream...under almost the same circumstances. We could only trip upstream for about 3/4 of an hour as we somewhat unexpectedly encountered some rather rugged and impassable waterfalls and decided not to try to portage above them on this trip. They were quite beautiful though, so it was worth making the short paddle upstream to see and photograph them. Saw several young Mallard ducks paddling around below the falls area as well. Darned nice day even if the trip wasn't particularly long. I have a couple of more trips lined up for this week already... yippee!! (o: