Weather: Sunny, beautiful
Wildlife: 1 deer, blue heron, osprey
Portages: 0
Because of yesterday's upstream struggle and some information from other paddler's suggesting that we would be facing more of the same, we contacted Gord's General Store in West Milan to find out about the water levels and investigating the option to paddle downstream back to Stark. Arranged for a shuttle, leaving the gear at the Stark Inn as we decided to stay a second night.
With the exception of a few gravel bars, this section of the river appears to be much more upstream paddler-friendly. Seemingly more so than the Groveton to Stark section we did yesterday. (Do we score any bonus points for having traveled the harder section upstream???) The river bottom was mostly sandy compared to yesterday's rocks.
We didn't get on the water until 11:30, stopping twice along the way--once for lunch, the second time for a swim. Haven't seen any paddlers on this Map 7 section at all so far. Very nice river, but still no moose. Since we were having a leisurely paddle and had room in the canoe, we picked up some trash we found along the way.
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| No bottle bans on the Upper Ammo |
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| Awesome reflections in the late afternoon |
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| More awesome reflections (Note the Budweiser case seen in this shot was from our river clean-up, and NOT personal refreshment) |
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| Awesomest! |
With the exception of the last stretch of boulders that we bumped through on our way back to Stark, the water levels were still high enough that the river, even this late in the summer, is doable. Was glad we didn't skip it in fear of low water. With both breaks, it took us about 6 hours to paddle downstream from West Milan to Stark.
