Category Archives: Trip reports

Altamaha Altimeter

Plan E In Slickrock Expedition days I always had more than one river in mind when I scheduled a canoe trip. Plan A was the advertised trip—say a week on Oregon’s Grande Ronde River, with the group meeting in Boise, … Continue reading

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Maine’s Machias, a Good “Bad Run of River”

Maine’s Machias River has its start about 30 miles northeast of Bangor as the crow flies, and it runs for 75 miles to the Atlantic though a part of Maine known as “Downeast” by those who live there—a region characterized … Continue reading

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Windstorm on the Rio Grande

I left Cullowhee for Big Bend National Park, in Texas, on November 7, 2022, with three canoes strapped on top of the truck and drybags of food and camping gear stowed inside.  Bobby Simpson and Pat Stone were to be … Continue reading

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Welcome to South Carolina’s Black

After canoeing North Carolina’s Black River in July last year with Paul Ferguson and Bobby Simpson, I thought it couldn’t be matched for a southeastern river trip—until this July when I canoed South Carolina’s Black, an entirely separate stream.  My … Continue reading

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Condo Wild, a Triplet Report

Every spring for a week or more Becky and I travel to Florida’s Amelia Island, where, like song birds that return to the same nesting site each year, we rent the same condo over and over again. Amelia is the state’s … Continue reading

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TalakPea Means “Canoe it”: The Pea-Choctawhatchee

It was the perfect storm. It was not the perfect place to camp in the storm.   Four of us—Bobby Simpson, Pat Stone, my son Henry, and I—had launched that morning on the Pea River in the town of Elba, Alabama, … Continue reading

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North Carolina’s Black River: The Trip Back

I was driving home from a canoe trip on the Black River in eastern North Carolina when Thoreau’s point-blank assessment of the human condition came to mind: “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” The famous line is … Continue reading

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Georgia in June? The Flint

“GA in June?” Monroe asked when he heard I was packing for a canoe trip on the Flint River: “Sounds snakey and buggy.” He had emailed me an article about Montana’s Blackfoot River, knowing I used to run trips there, … Continue reading

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Turning Big Rivers into Little Ones: The Satilla

“Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.”  Thoreau, 1857 When canoeing big Western rivers, such as the Colorado in the Grand Canyon, Idaho’s Salmon, Oregon’s Rogue, I watch rafters and kayakers head into … Continue reading

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