Northern Forest Canoe Trail Voyage

Today was a great day for seeing wildlife. We paddled Rapid River to Lower Richardson Lake. We got to see 2 Bald Eagles and a Moose swimming in the river. Not together, only the moose was swimming.

We woke up to find a Black Bear on the other side of the river from us. As we were paddling, we ran into Lori Duff from the Concord Monitor. We were very surprised to run into somebody that knew about us paddling the trail. At the end of the day, we noticed that Curt had leeches on his legs. Sara had so much fun removing them.

We paddled the Conneticut River today. The ride was nice and easy with slow moving water. We made it to the Upper Ammonoosuc before we setup camp for the night.

We started out near North Stafford with the goal of getting Steve to a hospital. Steve fell two days earlier and we thought it was not much of a bruise. It turned out that Steve broke 2 ribs. His journey to the hospital did not involve an ambulance, but it did involve hitchhiking. Curt and I stayed behind to setup camp and wait for Steve and Sara to return.

We started yesterday at Highgate Falls, VT. The water level is very low and we have been walking our canoes through the water. This is not a very good idea since the rocks are very slippery. After the portage around Sheldon Springs dam, we were able to paddle again. We reached Enosburg Falls last night and camped out in a field not far from the river.

This morning we left Enosburg Falls to paddle again in low water. If you are fat, you should paddle this trail in the spring when the water level is a bit higher. Hopefully we will lose some weight soon and we will stop bottoming out all the time. We stopped in Berkshire and had an excellent lunch at Dick & Pam's Deli. The sandwiches were huge, which is not much of a help for losing weight. The sandwiches where so big that Curt couldn't finish his sandwich. You will know what I mean once we get some pictures to post. The highlight of the day was seeing a baby goat on the river's edge and stopping to play with it for awhile.

Friday's canoe ride was not that hard. Our feet actually started to feel better. The only bad part of the day was when I stepped on an Yellow Jacket nest near Indian Dam. There were several abandoned canoe wrecks towards the end of the Saranac. We made it to Plattsburgh on Friday and setup camp at the Tumberland Bay Campground. The campground is beautiful and with binoculars, you can see Vermont. As planned, we decided to rest on Saturday. We used today as a time to let our feet get back to normal looking feet and to repair our canoe. With the help of a fellow camper named John, we installed a couple supports on the inside of our canoe to give it some more stability after tipping and bending it a couple days ago. We will be leaving for Vermont early Sunday morning after the sun comes up and we get some breakfast.

Thanks again John for the use of your power drill, knowledge and labor.