Weather: Rain showers in the morning, then partly sunny in the afternoon with scattered downpours
Wildlife: Five moose, several eagles, hawk, loon, early-morning low flying geese
Portage: Took the $10 Chase Rapids Shuttle
On the water by 7:10 a.m. after a somewhat restless night's sleep. Kay heard something scurry by her head at one point. A few mosquitoes lazily buzzed me. I found that putting in the ear plugs not only keeps the animals away, but is also good for mosquitoes too. Rained on and off throughout the night. Stopped while we were loading up the canoe, but started again once we were on the water. Of course.
Tail winds picked up as we exited Eagle Lake and gave us an awesome ride all the way to Churchill Dam. We were 10 miles away from the dam and needed to be there before noon if we wanted to take advantage of the water release to ride through Chase Rapids. Based on yesterday's mileage, I assumed we wouldn't make it. But we did the first 9 miles in two hours. And that was without a sail. Kay was the perfect rudder.
We saw two moose within the first hour.
The front was pushing away, the clouds breaking up and chunks of blue sky appeared behind us as we made our way through Round Pond to John's Bridge. Two sets of three or five Canadian geese flew at us just skimming the surface and passing within feet of the bow, the light sandwiching them between the burnished gray water and the steel-wool clouds. We didn't think they saw us. They brushed past us seemingly at eye level. In that moment time slowed. It felt like we were watching an animation. Or a page from The Book of Merlin. It was very surreal. Both of us looked at each other, completely awestruck.
We passed Scofield Point and saw that at least one campsite was occupied. This was the point that I had hoped to reach the day before.
Saw moose #3 in the reedy bay on the northwest as we approached Churchill dam. Apparently this is very common. But typically there is a gang of them instead of only one. Sigh...Talked to two rangers upon our arrival about running Chase Rapids. A very cheap ($10 for all your gear and however many canoes and bodies per party need to be moved) shuttle is offered for avoiding the Class II stretch of water. I had been deliberating about this for some time. Both of the rangers said they wouldn't do it with my type of canoe. So, I took their advice and didn't risk it. I did consider asking a solo paddler if I could ride down with him, but neither of us knew the others skill set (and I was probably highly suspect not wanting to take my own canoe), so Kay and I got our stuff loaded in the truck. And now I'll turn the page over to Kay's observations of the next part of the day.
We pulled up onto the landing at the dam at the north end of Eagle Lake. We walked around the grounds and were met by a ranger (warden?). Katina asked him if he’d run the rapids (Chase Rapids); he said “yes”. She asked if he’d do it in a Kevlar boat? He immediately replied “no”. OK Dilemma settle. For $10, the rangers would shuttle us and our gear past the rapids. Katina registered us into the Allagash Water Way (4 nights; Shady, the porch (a slight mistruth was told here), and two nights upcoming) and paid for the camping and shuttle. While she was doing that, various members of a family came into the history museum where we were. A few of them would be joining us on the shuttle. Ed, the ranger, went down to the landing to get the families’ boats and gear. He returned shortly to retrieve a trailer.
Katina and I browsed through the history museum and walked down to the landing for our ride.
We arrived below Bissonette Bridge, the shuttle drop-off point. I looked at the trailer; it was stuffed full of coolers and even held a 20lb propane cylinder. The back of Ed’s truck contained fishing poles, life jackets, two bags of garbage (compared to our one zip-lock bag of garbage), an ax, foam pads…it almost looked like a garage sale gone wrong back there.
Katina carried her canoe down while I helped Ed locate and remove our gear. He asked me to hang around in case some of our stuff was buried.
We got our gear down to the river and watched the girls bring down pieces of the families stuff. Then…we saw it…one of their canoes loaded full and high with coolers and who knows what being dragged down the gravel to the river/put in. Yikes.
The trailer was FULL: I saw only blue and white coolers at first glance. The group “men” helped load the two canoes onto the trailer that Ed would pull to the waiting area below the falls. Four female family members got into the backseat of Ed’s truck; an older grandmother type, a “mom” type and two young girls. They were on a family vacation traveling down the Allagash (actually up, since it runs north). They’d made the trip before. It sounded like a beer fest; they had a “90 pack”. They were a group of eight; four adults and four youths. They talked about being dry in the rain the night before with their roaring fire and tarps. Katina asked Ed about a blowdown – “oh yeah it was a real blow down last night…” They talked about the “professional” canoeists who stayed at the site next to them; who left before 7:30 w/o proving they really were “professional” according to the “mom”.
Katina had to get a picture.
We left quickly, wanting to get far ahead of “the family”. They said they were planning to camp at a site called Jalbert. We made extra effort to be past that site tonight.
 |
| Missing from this picture - one 20# propane tank and the kitchen sink |
I think I now understand why it only costs $10 for the shuttle. It would cost a whole lot more to fish people like this and their gear OUT of the Allagash. We scurried to get on the water before they did, which took us no time at all to do, being professionals and what not...
I was told the water levels were running at spring levels (1700 cfs) the day we put in. (After Hurricane Irene hit a week later, the Allagash was running at 8000 cfs.) We saw another moose in the river a short time after we left the put-in. Stopped for lunch at the first campsite (Meadows) and were joined shortly thereafter by the solo canoeist from New York, Christer. Christer has paddled the Allagash eight or more times and was the camper we had seen at Scofield Point. Running the rips were becoming fun and now I was second-guessing skipping the Chase Rapids. Too late now.
Headed on to Umsaskis Lake or "Umkaka" as we termed it due to the major head and side winds. We had to spend time tacking before turning toward Long Lake. Stopped at the first site (Pine) to take a break. It was very pretty but too close to a road for my taste. Plus we hadn't put enough distance between us and that family--although, if the wind kept up, we were pretty sure they were going to have problems on "Umkaka" lake too. Once on Long Lake, the side wind turned into a tail wind and we made some more progress before getting hit by a quickly passing downpour.
Stopped again, this time at Sam's campsite, to make popcorn. Christer caught up to us and we told him he could have this site as we had already decided to head another three miles further to keep making up the miles. The tailwind turned into a headwind and we pulled into a dry Lost Popple campsite. (The scattered shower that nailed us apparently didn't get as far north to this campsite.) The site wasn't too great (dark with a lot of down trees), but the outhouse was brand new and we had a dazzling pink sky as the sun set behind us. Later when we were slathering on Ben Gay, we heard sloshing outside our tent and saw moose #5 of the day silhouetted by the shoreline.
Dinner: Corn chowder, cheesy sweet potatoes
 |
| Moose sighting along the Allagash |
 |
| Sunset on Harvey Pond |
